


And Baby Makes 3?

by sparrowshellcat



Series: Avengers-Having-Babies [3]
Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Fantastic Four (Movieverse), Marvel, The Avengers (2012), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Surrogate mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:44:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 51,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were pretty sure it started with Tony Stark's forty-fifth birthday. Why else would the playboy of the city walk up to Johnny Storm, of all people, and tell that he wanted to have children with him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Epiphanyx7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanyx7/gifts).



> Avengers and the rest of the Marvel universe belong to Marvel, not to me. I've used them without permission, but with great respect for the original creations.
> 
> Also, some of the "politically incorrect" opinions of Avenger characters belong to them, not me!
> 
> \---
> 
> For more fic and art, you can follow me on Tumblr! [sparrowshellcat](http://sparrowshellcat.tumblr.com)

They were pretty sure that it had something to do with it being Tony's forty-fifth birthday.

Of course, he never said that's what it was, but it just seemed a little too convenient, in terms of timing, to be purely coincidental. After all, everyone knew it was coming, and even the papers were talking about it. Pepper had taken over the trivial details of planning his birthday party, like the where, the when, the who to invite and who not to invite lists, part of the planning, but it was Clint and Johnny that were planning the _important_ bits. And from the way they kept snickering in corners, everyone was pretty sure it involved someone jumping out of a cake. Whether it was Johnny himself or the more traditional stripper remained to be seen.

Regardless, two days before the momentous party – and no, Pepper was  _not_ going to allow Loki to amend the guest list to include some of his villainous friends – it happened.

Tony had wandered out of his lab after several days of focus on whatever project he was working on this time – looking terribly serious. His brows were furrowed, and he scratched at his normally neat beard as he seemed to search the house. JARVIS had to redirect him more than once before he finally stepped into the living room, where Clint and Johnny were sitting, heads together, talking over their plans. Of course, spotting Tony, Johnny squawked and hid the notebook he was scribbling in, and yelped, “Tony! Hey! What are you doing, man, you're not supposed to be trying to see what we're planning, it's supposed to be a surprise for... Tony? You okay?”

“No.” He said, as though he had to think about that for a moment.

Johnny stood, genuinely concerned as he grabbed his – boyfriend's? mate's? friend's with a very extended term of benefits? - arms, brows furrowed. “What is it, Tony? What's wrong?”

Tony met the other's eyes, then said, abruptly, “I want children.”

Clint spewed the swig of coffee he'd just drank across the living room.

Johnny blinked at him. “....children.”

“Yes.” Tony said, bluntly, shifting slightly so that he could grab Johnny's arms right back. “I want children. With you.”

“Uh...” he tried.

“God, I wish I had a video camera right now,” Clint cackled.

“I've taken the liberty of recording it, if you would like a copy.” JARVIS supplied, helpfully. 

“You are _awesome_!” He crowed, pointing at the ceiling.

“Um.” Johnny said again.

  
  


\---

Maggie was trying to sit still and be a good girl, but her little brother was squirming around in their father's lap, and it was far more entertaining to watch Joseph squirm and giggle and chew on Mjolnir – Thor insisted that it made a perfect teething toy for the boy because there was literally nothing he could do to harm it – than it was to sit still and be quiet.

Every few minutes, Steve would have to lean over and quietly remind her to be quiet. She'd immediately smile and nod, and be quiet for perhaps another minute.

“Why _are_ the munchkins here, anyway?” Clint asked, abruptly.

“The children are here because they're part of the situation, Clint.” Pepper said, with a slight sigh.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why are  _you_ here? Not that I mind the view, but you ain't an Avenger, sweet cheeks.”

“Neither are Johnny, Logan, or Loki,” Jan pointed out, cheerfully.

“I beg your pardon?” Loki arched a brow.

“Thought our official title was 'unofficial Avengers'.” Logan rolled his eyes. “Besides, I’m pretty damn sure as far as anyone else is concerned, anyone that fights alongside the Avengers is an Avenger.”

“No way,” Clint shook his head. “There's this whole process.”

“As I understand said process,” Natasha met Clint's eyes, “It was 'do you want to be an Avenger? Yes? Welcome to the club.' Not a difficult process.”

“Okay, maybe technically true, but there's still a _process_.”

“I am _fairly_ sure,” Pepper spoke up again, “That whether or not these three are considered Avengers is not the point of this meeting. As I understand it, the issue is about Tony and his insane desire to have children.”

“It's not insane,” Tony said, immediately.

“It sounds somewhat insane, Tony,” Bruce pointed out.

“Steve has two kids! No one's ever said _that_ was insane!” He protested.

“Steve is wedded to the father of his children, friend-Tony,” Thor pointed out. “And if mine memory serves me, when Loki revealed he was pregnant with Joseph, you told Steve thathe _was_ insane.”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Probably true. Well, no one  _other_ than me told him he was insane.”

“Actually, I did.” Johnny held up a hand. “And I’ll tell you, now. I think you're insane.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I did the math! I’m not insane.”

“You told me you want to have children _with me_.” Johnny pointed out. “Considering we're both men and neither of us is a god like Loki, I’m pretty damn sure that this makes you some kind of insane.”

“And before anyone suggests it,” Bruce spoke up, holding up his hands, “I will have to veto the idea that Loki could make it happen magically. Tony is in absolutely no physical shape to be carrying a child, between the alcohol and the reactor, and I refuse to chance that Johnny could flame on and kill an unborn child that is less fireproof than its father. Medically, the risks would be astronomical. So don't even think about it.”

“Do you think me an idiot child?” Loki arched a brow, bouncing Joseph on his knee.

“Of course not.” Bruce flushed.

“Then do not try to act as though I am. I am not foolish enough to work such magic on these men. Other magic, however,” he grinned, deviously.

“Ah ah ah, no.” Bruce pointed at him. “Even if one of them _was_ a woman, I would still not deem it safe!”

“Spoilsport,” the god drawled.

“I wasn't suggesting any of that, anyway.” Tony interrupted. “I was going to suggest surrogacy.”

Johnny blinked. “So...  _not_ a child with me, then.”

Maggie gave up on the mission to be quiet, and slid out of her seat, running barefoot around the table to tug on Logan's arm, brows furrowed in child like intensity. The mutant scooped the little girl up, settling her on his lap, and she beamed at the men and women around the table, pleased to be somewhat on their level now. Steve smiled softly at his daughter, and she just bounced slightly on Logan's lap, delighted.

“No, I still want to have a child with - “ Tony hesitated, looking around the table at the men and women watching him with naked curiosity on their faces.

Lowering his voice, Tony leaned closer to Johnny. “I want to have a kid with you. So I did some research and all, into the feasibility of this. Stark Industries have made a lot of progress in this field. My top doctors assure me that, with a donor egg, they would be able to create the necessary chromosomal cross in a lab, with our DNA. It would be our kid.”

Johnny narrowed his eyes, and lowered his own voice. “Why would you  _want_ to have a kid with me, though?”

“Hello? Have you _seen_ us?” He arched a brow. “Our child would be _perfect_.”

The blond considered that for a long moment, then nodded, and leaned back. “Good enough. Right. I’m in.”

“Hold on.” Natasha held up her hands. “It's not as simple as all that. There are more people who ought to have a say in this than just you...”

“Unless you're planning on donating the egg, Natasha, you actually have no say at all.” Tony leaned back in his seat, all the frenetic frenzy that had sort of consumed him since he'd walked out of his lab earlier this morning faded away. He was, once again, in complete control.

“Tony, you are _Iron Man_.” She said.

“And you are the Black Widow,” he agreed, and shrugged. “Your point is?”

“My point is that you are not just _some man_ that decides on day that he might like to have a child. You have far more to think about than just _yourself_!”

He waved across the table. “Captain. America. Two. Kids. Any of this ringing any bells, Tash?”

“You may also recall that those children weren't the result of mad science!”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you more upset because I’m Iron Man thinking about having kids, or because the child would be the genetically created offspring of two men?”

She half rose. “Do  _not_ try to turn this into one of your little - “

“Didja hear that, everyone?” Tony interrupted her. “Natasha's a homophobe. Doesn't want two men having children.”

“That is _not_ what I said at all!” She said, flushed.

“Oh Natasha,” Pepper sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You are playing right into his hands again...”

“So you'd be _fine_ with two men having children.” Tony countered, ignoring Pepper.

“Of course!” Natasha said, hotly. “I have no problem with Steve and Loki having a family, after all!”

He pointed at her. “But you hate children born because of the aid of science, you only like it if they can magically find a way to essentially become a woman long enough to have a child.”

The rest of the Avengers were watching the two like they were a tennis match – a serve here, volleyed back there, heads on a swivel.

“ _No_!” The red head stamped her foot. “It is a good thing that science has provided an answer for those unable to have children the traditional way! I just do not think, considering the _circumstances_ , that - “

“So you just don't think _I_ should have children.” Tony countered.

“To an extent, yes!”

“Because I want children with Johnny,” Tony said, quirking a brow, his expression otherwise inscrutable.

“No! I couldn't care less if you wanted to have children with Johnny, or Bruce, or Clint, or _Jan_!”

“...I'm a woman, actually.” Jan piped up.

“I don't care who you have children with, Tony!” Natasha said, firmly.

Tony grinned toothily. “Then we have your permission. Everyone else heard that, right? Natasha has officially declared that Johnny and I can have children. Any other protests?”

Maggie laughed, clapping her hands, and Logan smirked, bouncing her on his knee. “You tell 'em, kiddo.”

The Russian woman was trembling finely as he glowered at Tony.

“You know she is going to exact _very_ painful revenge on you later, right?” Johnny asked the other man, lowly. 

“Oh yeah,” Tony agreed, still grinning.

“And?”

“Worth it.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Johnny was laying across the foot of Tony's bed – because it _was_ still Tony's bed – on his stomach, flipping through the pages of notes Tony had printed for him to look through. “This looks awfully complicated.”

“Sure,” Tony agreed, crawling onto the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. “But we don't have to do the complicated bits.”

“As if you wouldn't insist on being there to get your fingers in that,” Johnny rolled his eyes.

“Normally, sure. But this is a baby we're talking about.”

Johnny frowned for a moment, then shifted, rolling onto his side. Resting his head on his hand, and his elbow on the bed, he considered the other man for a few long moments, gauging the other's expression. “You're really serious about this.”

“Yeah.” Tony settled, cross-legged, beside him. “You agreed, too. Trying to back out now?”

“No,” he shook his head, and reached out to idly run his palm up Tony's leg, making the other's hair stand sort of akimbo and wild. “No, I didn't say that. I’m just doing some thinking.”

“Hm.” Tony nodded, watching him.

“We _would_ have some pretty epic kids, huh?” Johnny suddenly grinned. “My looks, your brains...”

“Well.” Tony sniffed. “We'd better hope it works out that way, hadn't we, because if it's the other way around, we'd simply have a gorgeous idiot for a child. At least with my brains, our ugly little baby would have a chance in the world.”

Johnny laughed, and whacked Tony in the arm with the file folder.

Snickering, he said, “So still in on this thing?”

“Yeah... I guess I could stand to have to talk to you at least until the kid's eighteen,” he smirked, and shifted, squirming until he was laying on his back, his head resting on the towel Tony had sort of looped around his waist like a rough skirt, after his shower. “Though you know Natasha _did_ have a point, right?”

Tony ran his fingers over Johnny's short, stubbly hair. “Didn't you see me destroy that little argument of hers?”

“She wasn't against it for homophobic or sciencephobic reasons, and you know it.” He sighed, closing his eyes with a sigh, melting into the other's touch. “She was protesting because of the fact that you're Tony Stark, notorious playboy who also happens to be Iron Man who used to host massive orgies and love-ins until he got distracted by being 'Unca Nony'. And I happen to be the former astronaut underwear model that got mutated by space radiation who tells kids things like, you know, fuck the haters. We would both probably be _awful_ fathers, even if we weren't running around New York destroying super villains and HYDRA and stuff.”

“We'd be awesome dads,” he countered. “We're awesome with Maggie and Joseph.”

“You play _Rocket Football_ with Maggie.”

“And she has remarkable - “

“I know, control over an Iron Man suit for a five year old. But even you have to admit that her teacher was right when she said that Maggie should _not_ have brought her arc light cannons to school.”

Tony hesitated. “Technically true.”

Johnny finally opened his eyes, and pointed out, “Besides, Tony... I mean, we're not even  _together_ .”

“But we're not _not_ together, either.” He countered.

Johnny rolled his eyes.

“Hey, you know I’m right.” Tony grinned, rubbing the other's head. 

“Yeah, yeah, you're always right, Tony.” Johnny snorted, and twisted again, never really any good at sitting still anyway. Facing the other man, the blond looked back at him, seriously, eye to eye, and said, “Are you _really_ sure that you wanna have a kid with me?”

“Yes.” He said, firmly.

Johnny narrowed his eyes.

Tony arched a brow. “What? I do. You expect flowers and poetry and 'oh, be the father of my child' declarations and stuff? Cause I can write a pretty good limerick, but they're always dirty, and if you want some declaration that you are the only one I’d ever choose for this, well. I’m pulling a leaf from Loki’s book, here, and I’m gonna refuse to lie to you. That just ain't true. But I  _want_ to have a kid with you, Johnny. So... that's the truth.”

“You know Reed and Sue are gonna kill us, right?” He smirked.

Tony laughed. “Yep.”

Johnny leaned forward to press his lips firmly to Tony's, then said, “I guess that'll have to do, then, you unromantic lump. So when are we gonna do this?”

“Soon as we get a surrogate.”

The blond considered that, thoughtfully for a moment, then abruptly shifted up onto his knees. Pressing his palms to either side of the arc reactor in Tony's chest, he pushed, until the billionaire thumped back onto the bed, landing more or less in the pillows. Johnny then plucked up the end of the towel that Tony had wrapped around him. He smirked at him, wiggling his eyebrows, then tugged it off of him, tossing it aside. Now that they were both more or less naked – Tony always argued that the arc reactor should count as clothing when discussing whether or not he was being indecent – Johnny crawled up the bed beside him, and settled beside Tony, hand curled over the source of the dull blue light in Tony's chest. Resting his head on the other's shoulder, he just rubbed the edges of the reactor with his thumb, quietly. “So who were you thinking as a surrogate, then?”

Looking up at the ceiling, Tony brushed his finger's down the other's spine. “Well, I have a few ideas, but I sort of figured you should be involved.”

“Heh. Sure. First idea?” Johnny asked.

“Well... could ask Sue?”

Johnny lifted his head, looking down at Tony with a slightly incredulous expression. “You mean my  _sister_ , Sue?”

“Yeah, some of the studies suggest that a close genetic match can help...”

“No. No no no no no.” Johnny groaned.

“Hey, it was just an idea - “

“I do _not_ want my _sister_ carrying my _kid_ , okay?” Johnny shuddered. “No. A thousand times no.”

“Okay then. JARVIS?”

“Shall I strike Sue Storm from the list of possible surrogates, sir?” The computer asked, cheerfully.

“Yeah.”

“Sir, if you'll recall, I advised against putting her on the list to begin with...”

As Johnny snickered into his collarbone, Tony glowered at the computer's control panel. “Screw you very much, JARVIS, I don't need to hear 'I told you so' from a robot. Remember, I made you.”

“And you can unmake me just as easily,” The computer relieved, dryly, sounding exactly like a teenager rolling his eyes.

“Are you sure you want kids?” Johnny laughed. “I mean, look how well JARVIS turned out.”

“Our child will be a _vast_ improvement.” Tony sniffed.

Still snickering, he asked, “Okay, next?” 

“Jan.”

“No way, she'd go nuts if she couldn't shrink and fly, and Bruce would never allow her to do that.” He shook his head. “Besides... Janet van Dyne? With _stretch marks_? Never.”

“Good point.” He mused. “Natasha?”

“After what you did to her today?” Johnny arched a brow.

“Well, I sorta figured I could appeal to her sense of humanity,” Tony smirked, still stroking the other's back. “And you know, capitalize on the fact that she totally wants me.”

Johnny snorted. “Sure.”

“She does,” he pointed out, smirking.

“Sure she does,” he said, willing to humour the other, if nothing else. “Except that there's also no way that Fury would ever let you knock up his very favourite assassin. He needs her to kick HYDRA's ass.”

“She could totally kick ass pregnant.”

“Sure, she _could_.” Johnny rolled her eyes. “But that wouldn't really be safe for her or the baby, would it? So let's not do that, okay?”

“Hm. Do have a point there.” Tony agreed, finally. “What about Pepper?”

Johnny considered that. “Well, you could ask if you want, but I sort of think she's more important where she is, isn't she? I mean, I’m pretty sure Stark Industries would absolutely collapse without her, and as you seem to really like having all this money... I sorta think that might be a bad idea.”

“Do we not know _any_ women we could ask?” Tony frowned. “JARVIS! List?”

“You had Ororo and Jean next, sir.” 

Tony blinked. “Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

Johnny arched a brow. “You  _do_ know why that's a bad idea, right?”

“Because if the X-Men so much as even _look_ at this kid, they'll be cursed?” Tony guessed, arching a brow. “Because all of their children _are_?”

“Bingo.”

“As it is, we're lucky that Logan is sort of a free agent, otherwise I might kick him outta here before the kid's born.” Tony frowned, pursing his lips. “What about Thor's girlfriend? Jane Doe or whatever he calls her?”

“You actually think that Thor, who was angry that his brother was a whore and unmarried when he was pregnant with Maggie, would be cool with his girlfriend having our child?” Johnny arched a brow, tapping his fingertips on the glass cover of the arc reactor. “I mean, don't get me wrong, she wouldn't be an awful idea, but there is no _way_ Thor would let us.”

“Hey, her body, her choice.”

“Sure, but my head likes _not_ being crushed in my Mjolnir.” He rolled his eyes.

Tony hesitated. “You make a good point.”

They lay there in silence for a few long moments, then Johnny lifted his head. “Maybe we should hold auditions or something.”

Tony blinked at him. “...like American Idol for Baby Mamas? 'Who Wants to be a Surrogate'?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of, you know, putting out the word, maybe imply that Stark Industries is willing to pay the woman, holding some interviews...”

“Every poor chick with a uterus would show up, Johnny.” Tony rolled his eyes. “We gotta have more of a screening process than that. Besides, I know we're going with, like, an actual Tony 'n Johnny baby here, combining our DNA and all, but I really think the surrogate ought to fulfill some other standards, too. You know, to make sure she could be an effective surrogate. I don't want our brilliant genius gorgeous ass DNA to get all wasted because she's got derp baby eggs. _And_ there's the whole part where your DNA was all modified to a sub-atomic cellular level. You know, the radiation and everything.”

“I remember,” he agreed, smirking slightly at the other's excitement.

“So I dunno, what happens if your DNA makes the baby go all super before it's even born? I mean, it could happen, right?”

“It could,” Johnny nodded, sitting up, and looking down at Tony, who sort of grinned, cheekily, and stretched. Running his fingers down the line of the other man's sternum, tracing his way around the lines of the arc reactor. Tony sometimes wondered if maybe the reason he kept coming back to the Human Torch was because Johnny wasn't afraid of the implant. Didn't care that it basically made Tony a cyborg, wasn't unnerved by it glowing dully in the darkness of his bedroom at night. But Johnny also didn't obsess over it, didn't insist on drawing attention to it, at least not any more than he did any other part of Tony. Even now, Johnny's fingers were trailing down his stomach, dipping teasingly in his navel for a moment, then the younger man said, “There are a lot of unknowns when you have a child, Tony, and there are even more when you're superheroes. And let's face it, any Avenger having a kid is gonna be complicated. _Especially_ when they're planned. So I suggest we try and get someone who's at _least_ in the know. I mean, someone who _gets_ the whole Avengers drama thing.”

Tony pursed his lips for a moment. “Right. Is this the part where we turn the 'find a surrogate' operation over to Pepper?”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “ _No_ , Tony. Our kid, our legwork.”

“God, say that again?”

“Our legwork?”

“No, not that part...” Tony grinned up at him. “Before that.”

“Our kid?” Johnny grinned.

“Yeah.” The billionaire grinned up at the blond. “Sounds kinda awesome, doesn't it?”

He laughed, and swung his leg over Tony's hips, pinning the other down to the bed as he grinned down at him. “Sounds like something that deserves a celebration.”

“I like how your brain works, firefly,” he grinned.

  
  


\---

  
  


“I need you to make an announcement for me.”

Pepper looked up from her keyboard, considering Tony for a long moment. He was sitting on the edge of her desk, kicking his feet like a little boy, turning her paperweight over and over in his hands, frowning slightly at it, like he was trying to puzzle out how it worked. She wasn't sure there was really all that much to puzzle out – it had no moving parts, you just put it on top of papers. He glanced up as though he felt her eyes on him, giving her an innocent look, instead of looking the part of a man that would be forty five. Tomorrow.

“And what sort of announcement is this?”

“Me and Johnny need a surrogate.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“Johnny and I.”

“ _Pepper_ , I hold several degrees. I know how to use grammar properly. My use of the colloquial vernacular was used for emphasis.” He said, loftily.

“Mmhmm.” Pepper leaned back in her chair, folding her hands and arched a single brow.

Tony rolled his eyes, and thumped her paperweight down with a bit of a flourish. She sort of supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that Tony would end up with another man. He'd always had sort of a flair for the dramatic. “In any case.  _We_ are in need of a surrogate.”

“And here I assumed that I would be automatically conscripted for that role.” She said, dryly.

He had, at least, the good sense to look slightly flustered. “Johnny made a good point that you're rather  _needed_ here, as CEO, and that I  _really_ don't want to have to find a replacement for you while you're on maternity leave. So no, you're not automatically our surrogacy candidate.”

“I'm flattered,” she smirked.

“So yeah. Need you to put out the word.” Tony waved his hands. “That we're looking.”

“Tony...” she sighed.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” He sighed, heavily, running his hands through his hair, sobering. “Look, okay, before I get the lecture... I know how big of an undertaking this is, I know I’m trying to change everything and I know how big of a responsibility a kid is. But, I mean... ever since Loki showed up pregnant and it _could_ have been mine... yeah. Yeah, Pepper, I wanted a kid. I’m a futurist, Pep. Children _are_ the damn future and if I died, tomorrow, I mean... what would I leave behind? I mean, _besides_ a multinational multimillion dollar company, half a dozen Iron Man suits, a million broken hearts, a hole in the leadership of the Avengers, and a _really_ attractive corpse. You know, awful hot. For a dead guy. But how long would all that last? Ten years? Twenty if I’m lucky? Fuck, Pepper, children would leave a damn _legacy_.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she said, as though she'd just had a revelation.

“Oh what?” Tony frowned.

“This is about tomorrow.” Pepper said, calmly.

“Tomorrow...?” He blinked at the woman. “Pepper, if I went out and had a child every time someone threw a party for me, I would have a literal _army_ of tiny Tonys. Not that I’m saying that this is necessarily a bad idea, but...”

“It's not the _party_ , Tony, it's the fact that you're turning forty five.”

“Please,” he scoffed. “Come on, forty five is the new twenty five. I’m as young and virile and _not old_ as I ever was. Besides, Pep, I’m _rich_. Did you forget that? If this was a mid life crisis, I’d buy a few penis-compensating cars – not that I need penis compensating cars, thank you very much, my penis is _glorious_ – or I would _rent_ a few kids for a few hours. Get the bug out of my system and move on. I want a child because I want to leave a goddamn _legacy_ , Pepper.”

“And the fact that your boyfriend – and future baby daddy – is fifteen years younger than you? That has nothing to do with it?”

“No.” He said, loftily. “And he's not my boyfriend.”

“Of course not, he's only been living here, what,” Pepper crossed her arms, smirking. “Five years?”

“He doesn't _live_ here,” Tony argued. “He's one of the Fantastic Four. He lives in the Baxter Building. With the other three of the four.”

“And when's the last time he slept there?”

He hesitated. “...Christmas?”

“Reed, Ben and Sue came _here_ last Christmas, Tony,” Pepper drawled, sort of lazily, clearly taking great joy in ribbing him on this.

“Look, this is _not_ the point.” Tony held up his hands. “The point is that I want to have a child with Johnny Storm, and relationships or age or mid-life crises has nothing to do with it. I have thought this through, I have considered all these points, and I want a child with Johnny. Simple. Now. Can you put out the word, or can't you?”

Pepper considered Tony for a long moment, then nodded. “All right.”

“You are an _angel_ , Pep,” he grinned at her, and snagged her hand to kiss her knuckles. “So we're looking for someone in the superhero know and all, since the baby _could_ be super, and we _are_ willing to pay. And she has to agree to genetic screening.”

“No mutants?” She guessed.

“Naw, we're down with the X-gene. She just has to be, you know, not a frost giant or something.”

“Ah.” Pepper smirked.

“And hey, if a dude like Loki shows up and says _he_ can get pregnant, too... hey, we don't discriminate against that, either. Just make, like, a short list. Johnny says _we_ need to do the actual legwork and all so we can do the interviews... just... you're good at this sort of thing, Pep.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she smirked. “But I’ll put the word out.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he stood, and bowed smoothly, grinning cheekily. “Now, I know you have a guest list to finalize...”

“Tony, the party is tomorrow. People have been invited for weeks.”

“See?” Tony grinned. “This is why I asked you. Terribly organized woman, you are.”

“Go, Tony, I have work to do,” she laughed.

“Wanna organize the next Avengers meeting, too?”

“ _Go_ , Tony!”

  
  


\---

  
  


Jan was curled up in the corner of the couch when Bruce hurried through the room, figuring he'd just pass through on his way to see if Clint had finished with the birthday present they were supposed to be giving Tony. But he halted, suddenly, when he saw what she was reading, and doubled back. “Jan? What is that?”

She looked up from the pages, blinking slightly. “...it's a magazine? Bit archaic, I know, but it's easier to do the crossword in here than on the Stark Tablets, or something...”

“No, obviously it's a _magazine_... what is on the _cover_?”

“Oh!” She blinked, and flipped back to the cover, peering at it for a moment. “Um, I think this was at that charity gala ball last month?”

The photo on the front cover was of Tony and Johnny, dressed in tuxes, their heads close to each other's. It was a candid moment, caught somehow in the midst of the rush of people, the two men close to each other as they spoke, trying to keep whatever they were saying between just the two of them. Tony had a glass of champagne up, the very tip of the glass touching his lip, but he wasn't drinking, he was smiling sort of mischievously, as though whatever it was Johnny was saying had made Tony stop drinking to laugh. If it had been anyone else, Bruce would have said that it was a couple very much in love. Only it was Tony and Johnny, which meant that it was infinitely more difficult to figure out. 

Above them, in bold white capital letters, it read, “ _WHO IS THE BABY MAMA? RUMOURS OF INFIDELITY FLY OVER STARK BABY_ .”

“How does People already know that they are planning kids?” Bruce gaped at the magazine.

“I dunno,” Jan shrugged, considering that for a moment, then flipped through the magazine for a moment before brandishing a glossy page at him. “But it's sort of an interesting article. About, like... all the different people that Tony has slept with and who could therefore, possibly be the mother of his child. They got a lot of the facts _really_ wrong, but the picture is good.”

He blinked at her, then at the page again. “...they're possibly naked in this photo.”

“Woah, which photo is that?!” She bolted up, and snatched the magazine back out of his hand. “I missed that one! I was looking at the dumb one of them in their suits and ties in GQ last year – _damn_ , who took this one?”

Bruce leaned on the back of the couch, frowning slightly. It was a grainy, typical paparazzi photo, of the two of them in the pool when they'd gone to that resort in Virgin Islands, Tony's arms looped lazily around Johnny's shoulders, as they almost lazily kissed. That was the sort of stuff that ended up in these magazines all the time, though usually with insinuations that Tony and Johnny were on again and off again. Stark and Storm were pretty much keeping the gossip rag industry alive, as far as Bruce could tell. “I don't know. But how did the magazine find  _out_ ?”

“Who knows... and who cares?” Jan shrugged, chewing on her thumbnail, quietly. “There's no such thing as privacy when you're an Avenger.”

“Well,” he muttered. “ _That's_ true.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“Quite the shindig they've got here.”

Agent Phil Coulson looked up from the depths of the glass of champagne he'd been staring into, thoughtfully. He hadn't even managed to drink any of it, yet. “It  _is_ quite a party, isn't it? Seems an awful lot for one man to have for a birthday.”

Director Nick Fury smirked slightly, and swirled the unconsumed champagne in his own glass. “Of course, Tony Stark does nothing by halves.”

The party really  _was_ quite impressive. Despite the fact that it was currently used to house the Avengers, and, to a lesser extent, the SHIELD operatives that the Avengers had assigned to them, everyone had still been invited to the Stark mansion. The massive ball room had been decked out with red Christmas lights that managed to twinkle from the ceiling like malevolent little stars instead of tacky LED lights, and gold streamers were draped everywhere like medieval banners, like a ticker tape parade caught in mid air. There were ice sculptures and champagne glass pyramids, and, of all things, somewhat clad men and women dancing on poles set up into alcoves in the walls. It wouldn't really be a party for Tony Stark without at least  _some_ hint of debauchery. Those in attendance were in their very finest, senators mingling with notable scientists, actors with wannabe heroes, SHIELD agents with gods, mutants with millionaires. Sort of an eclectic party, really.

“Mm. Johnny Storm and Clint have been working on it for weeks.”

“I'm not surprised.” Fury finally sipped at his champagne. “So, have you heard the latest Avenger rumour, Agent Coulson?”

He cleared his throat, and asked, deliberately vaguely, “Sir?”

“Tony Stark and Johnny Storm are planning a family.”

Coulson cleared his throat again, and finally said, “Yes, I am aware of that rumour. Aware that it's not entirely a rumour, either.”

“I thought as much,” he said, brows furrowed.

“I didn't report it to SHIELD,” Coulson said, after a long moment. “Because I wasn't really sure that it counted as a matter of national security. They're not planning on doing anything illegal, or using any methods the FDA hasn’t already approved, and... well. Even agents of the government should be allowed to have children, surely?”

He didn't like the fact that he was standing on the side of the eye patch. It made Fury's expression very hard to read.

“You're right.” The Director shrugged, turning his glass in his gloved fingers.

Coulson sighed softly. Technically, the Avengers were his charges. He knew that he was essentially supposed to be reporting anything out of normal that they did to SHIELD, but in a sense, he sort of felt protective over them. He was practically their nanny. He sort of felt protective over them. Like... a superhero nanny.

They were his charges.

And yeah, sometimes he felt overprotective.

“SHIELD has no stake, as you might say, in the bedrooms of the Avengers. Naturally we were somewhat involved with Loki's child, but he _had_ declared himself an enemy of the state.”

“And, of course, it was your child,” Coulson said, trying to sound light.

Fury actually sipped at his champagne, and grudgingly nodded. “And Maggie is my daughter.”

Coulson smiled faintly. It wasn't common knowledge – outside of the Avengers, naturally – that the director of SHIELD was the father of Loki and Steve's oldest daughter, Maggie. Steve raised her, but Nick Fury was, technically, the father of the once-super villain's daughter. Loki wasn't really much of a villain these days, though, not anymore. A consulting villain, he had called himself one day, after a few too many hours of watching the BBC. But it gave the Avengers – and Loki himself – a certain level of security, that Fury was Maggie's father. Even after she'd begun teleporting shortly after she'd discovered how to walk, he still refused to let SHIELD take her in for observation. She was  _his_ little girl.

“I must say, I’m a little surprised you aren't concerned about Johnny Storm having children,” Coulson admitted. “After the fuss a few years ago, when Sue was expecting a child herself.”

“We've learned a lot, the last few years, about super children,” Fury admitted. “Some if it is good.”

“And some of it is not.”

“More children than ever are being born with the X-gene,” Fury agreed, looking displeased. “Obviously we're concerned.”

“Neither Storm nor Stark is a mutant,” Coulson pointed out.

“I am aware,” he agreed.

“Hm.” Coulson sipped at his champagne, eyes flicking, as they often did, to the Avengers. As though doing a mental head count, he found Jan dancing with a quite put-upon looking Clint, Pepper and Natasha speaking to the New York senator by the punch bowl, Loki, Steve and Bruce milling off to the side as Thor attempted to explain some story, and Johnny was talking to Logan with broad, expansive hand gestures. Thor's girlfriend, Jane, he knew, was upstairs with the children – clever, he thought, getting out of the party by offering to babysit. He'd been reluctant to grant her access to the Avengers, but it was true that Thor had become rather dependently attached to her, and he was pretty sure they wouldn't be getting rid of her anytime soon. So she was on babysitting duty, along with Ororo. He couldn't blame either of them for finding ways to avoid the party itself. It wasn't that parties weren't fun, it was just... well. There were a _lot_ of people here. Neither of those women were really into crowds. “Well, Tony hasn't made his grand entrance yet.”

“I'm sure he's wanting it to be dramatic.” He rolled his eye, slightly.

“Yes, well... that _would_ be typical for Tony,” Coulson agreed, shaking his head, slightly. “Have you seen Dr. Pym? I thought he said he was going to make an appearance.”

“He was,” Fury agreed, but his tone didn't say 'oh, I heard that too,' his tone said 'he thought he was coming, but he's not'.

Coulson narrowed his eyes, slightly. “Director Fury?”

“He thought better of coming.”

He frowned up at the other man for a long moment, sipping at his champagne. He was usually the one trying to step between his Avengers and others – it was unusual to see Nick Fury stepping in, instead. It was encouraging. “If you're trying to protect Janet's feelings...”

“I'm not trying, Coulson,” Fury said, calmly. “Hank Pym is a genius, and he's done many good things for both his government and the scientific community. Ever since the issue with the Ultron androids, however, we've had to keep a tight leash on him, and after the issues he's been having with the other Avengers...”

“You've decided to ban him from Avenger functions,” he said, after a moment. “Because of the conflict of interests he's having with the goals of the Avengers.”

“Essentially.” Fury agreed.

Coulson sighed softly. “There are plans in place, to ensure that Hank and Jan wouldn't bump into each other, everyone knows she's still in love with him...”

“I decided to simply remove the possibility.”

“Hm.” He nodded, sipping at his champagne. “I _would_ rather you left the care of the Avengers to me.” Coulson muttered, slightly. “Seeing as how that's supposed to be my _job_ , Fury.”

“Hm.” The other smirked slightly.

“Agent Coulson, Director Fury.”

Coulson looked up, and smirked slightly when he realized that it was Loki and Steve standing in front of them, interrupting the seriousness of their discussion. Steve was dressed in a neat black suit, with a neat little bow tie in the same emerald green as the sleek, long opera coated suit that Loki wore. The god looked downright devious as he stood curled against his husband's side, arm looped through his. Loki didn't need Steve for protection or support – he held onto the other man this way because he was laying a visual claim on the national hero. There were a lot of women – and men, since he'd gotten himself married to another man a few years ago – who had tried to steal the blond American Icon over the years. “Well, well, what are our favourite nannies up to this evening?”

“Babysitting.” Fury grunted.

“Funny,” Loki drawled. “I thought Ororo and Jane were watching Maggie and Joseph.”

“Yes,” Coulson agreed, sipping at his champagne. “We're babysitting the less responsible children. Speaking of... where _has_ the birthday boy himself gone?”

“I think he's getting himself all set up for a dramatic entrance,” Steve said, with a slight smile. “He would not have been out of place among the song and dance shows they used to throw for the USO men, back in the day.”

“I would pay to see Tony Stark dancing for the troops.” Fury smirked.

Coulson snickered slightly into his champagne. “I think that could be arranged. Tell him it's for the good of the nation, he'd do it.”

“Tell him people are going to _watch_ him, and he'd do it.” Loki smirked slightly, then leaned up to kiss Steve's cheek, with a sort of mischievous bit of flair, then he dipped his head to the SHIELD men, and said, “Steve, dollface... I think my brother is searching for us again.”

Steve looked surprised. “Oh, we should go find him, then!”

Loki rolled his eyes slightly, and wiggled his fingers at Coulson and Fury, leading his husband away, smirking. “I think they were flirting.”

“Coulson and Fury?” Steve blinked, surprised, glancing over his shoulder at the men as they left. 

“That was who I meant, yes.”

“...no way.” His blond husband blinked at him, looking somewhat stunned. “They're... they're entirely professional men. They are _very_ professional. So very professional that I can't even imagine that they would... ever...”

“What, have sex?” Loki turned to face Steve properly, cupping the back of the other's arms, looking up at him. The god smirked, an entirely devious thing, and said, calmly, “ _You_ are an entirely professional man, Steve. In fact, you are so terribly professional that you managed to spend about ninety years as a virgin. Even those of us that have lived for centuries didn't actually wait _quite_ that long... it's an admirable quality, your patience.”

“...thank you?” Steve said, not really sure what to make of that statement.

The trickster pressed closer to his husband, and let his lips brush over his just for a moment before he slid his mouth gently up the other's jaw, and breathed in his ear, softly, “The way you  _fuck_ is  _far_ more admirable.”

He swallowed, thickly. “ _Loki_ ...”

Loki grinned against the shell of Steve's ear, catching the lobe of his ear in his teeth for a moment, tugging a little, teasingly. “Mmmm... I’d rather leave this party and pin you against a wall, Steve, darling of mine. I’d fuck you  _so_ hard, you look  _so_ good in that damn suit, imagine you'd look even better  _out_ of it.”

Steve made a soft whimpering sound that he hoped sounded at least a  _little_ manly.

“We're not needed at this party, are we?” He purred.

“Yes,” Steve cleared his throat, trying to hold steady and stern. He was supposed to be Captain America, all representing American values and all that. And he supposed, usually, that being helpless with desire because his former villain husband was trying to encourage him to be irresponsible wasn't terribly representative of American values. Or, rather, of _traditional_ American values, he imagined this might be the sort of thing that Tony would insist were _modern_ American values. “Yes, Loki, we're needed at this party. Don't you want to celebrate Tony's birthday with him?”

“Hm.” Loki leaned back, considering him for a moment. “Perhaps I would. But we are not celebrating this occasion with Tony, we are celebrating it with the entire upper crust of New York.”

“...true.” He agreed, grudgingly. 

“And where _is_ Tony, regardless?” He frowned slightly, looking around.

“That seems to be the question of the night,” Steve agreed, frowning slightly, scratching the back of his neck. “...wasn't Johnny talking to Logan, earlier?”

“He may have been, I was paying attention to another blond hero,” Loki grinned at him, and playfully straightened Steve's bowtie, long, deft fingers playing over his collar and neck, gently, teasing his husband, slightly. “But yes, I believe that he was.”

“Well, he's _not_ there now.”

“Mmm... it _is_ a large party, dollface, he could have disappeared somewhere else. If he _is_ , in fact, missing... then I suppose we know where exactly Tony has gone.” He smirked, and pressed his lips to Steve's, again. “And everyone's rather forgotten that this was supposed to be Tony's party. They've all been completely distracted by _us_.”

“Oh, that's not good.” Steve blinked, looking around, flushing slightly when he realized that people _were_ , in fact, watching them. “Well then.”

“I like when they watch,” he smirked slightly, and kissed him again, before finally looping his arm through Steve's again, and just leading him through the party, slowly. Casually. “Let them watch and _wish_ they could have and never actually get. Because, dollface, you're mine.”

Steve laughed softly, smiling at him.

Loki patted his husband's upper arm, then nodded at the walls, with the pole dancers, who were twisting and turning and hanging from the poles in impressive displays of athletic strength that really sort of baffled the mind. It was terribly amazing, actually. “You see them dancing, like that? I’ve always wanted to try that. Just to see what it is like.”

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “Why, Loki?”

“Mm... mostly to see how you'd react.” He smirked, playing with the buttons of the other's dress shirt. “I think I could render you speechless within mere seconds. I’m quite... _bendy_ , you see.”

Steve flushed.

“Oh look, I’ve made you speechless already.” Loki grinned. “ _Delightful_.”

“You know, you're a smug brat, sometimes,” Steve laughed, softly, then looked up when the music changed. There was a live band playing, and though they'd been playing something you'd typically hear on a dance floor back in Steve's teenaged years for the most part, now they were suddenly playing something that seemed to be all percussion and trumpets, loud and thundering, reverberating in their rib cages. There was suddenly an explosion of light and sound, like someone had just set off a flash bomb, and everyone's attention was turned to the balcony that over hung the ball room, like something from a Shakespearean play. “Either that's his entrance, or we're under attack.”

“How can we be? I’m right _here_.” He laughed.

The lights on the balcony finally dimmed slightly, and Tony Stark walked out onto the balcony, hands spread out as the showman he was, and bowed, cheekily. He was wearing a neat suit, but he wasn't  _quite_ as neat as usual, as the collar was open, his tie hanging loose around his neck, just a hint of the Arc Reactor visible in the 'v' of his shirt. His hair wasn't as neatly swept back as it normally was, as though someone had buried their fingers in it mere moments before. “Ladies and  _gentlemen_ !” He called, like a maestro director his orchestra. “Welcome! Thank you all for coming to celebrate the most interesting man in the world, which is, naturally, myself... sorry I couldn't manage getting Johnny Storm to jump out of a birthday cake after all, but I promise, the party will still be good. Just drink up, and  _imagine_ him jumping out of a cake. Have a good night, friends!”

The audience cheered and clapped, and Tony bowed again, grinning, before sweeping back down the stairs that lead into the ballroom itself, from his little vantage point.

The rest of the party attendants went back to whatever they had been doing before, some moving onto the dance floor as the band resumed playing something that people could dance to. Steve watched the balcony for a moment longer, though, and his suspicions were confirmed when, a moment after Tony had headed down the stairs, Johnny followed the other man, looking about as rumpled as Tony had.

“Cap! Evil trickster god!” Tony laughed as he swept up towards the couple, and clapped both of them on the arm. “Heya there... enjoying the party?”

Loki smirked. “It's passable.”

“Yeah... I think Pepper insisted that Clint and Johnny sort of pare back some of their plans...” He considered that, turning around slowly to consider the whole room, then leaned closer to them, and said, conspiratorially, “The pole dancers, though... that was a nice touch.”

“I rather approve,” Loki agreed, smirking at Steve, who looked sort of flustered.

Tony arched a brow. “What is this?”

“I think we've discovered my husband's secret little kink,” Loki smirked, patting Steve's stomach. “Now, you don't seem to have _any_ secret kinks, just delightfully public ones, but where exactly is your dear Johnny?”

“Hey!” Johnny swung his arm around Tony's shoulder, grinning brightly at them all. “Harassing the birthday boy, are we? Hey, Steve... wanna help me give him his spankings?”

Loki laughed before Steve could answer. “I would  _pay_ to see that.”

“Maybe you'll get a chance to, big guy.” Tony smirked at them all, then squeezed Johnny's shoulder. “Not a bad shindig, though, you guys sort of outdid yourselves. I like it. It's hot.”

“You think everything is hot, Tony,” Johnny rolled his eyes.

“Including you.” He smirked.

“ _Naturally_ , I’m deliriously hot.” The Human Torch snickered, and flicked his fingers, a flame popping up in his hand. “Anyone need a light? Anyone? Lights are being offered.”

“None of us smoke, Johnny,” Tony smirked.

“Not entirely true.” Johnny said, cheerfully, and swatted his lover's shoulder. “I've seen you working in that lab... one of your robots _constantly_ has a fire extinguisher on him. I get the impression that you light on fire on a regular basis.”

“I'm fairly sure that's your fault.” Tony said, sarcastically.

“I dunno,” Steve pointed out, with a grin, “I think you had Dummy outfitted with the fire extinguisher a while _before_ he showed up, actually.”

“You're not helping, Steve. Loki, tell your husband he's not helping.”

Loki smirked, and looked up at him. “You're not helping, dollface.”

“I'm sorry, Tony.” Steve said, with a smirk.

“You'd better be, Cap,” he said, with a laugh, and finally sighed softly. “So. Anyone got some champagne for the birthday boy?” 

“I'm sure some could be arranged.” Loki lifted a hand, and snapped several times, smirking when that brought several of the serving staff over with trays laden with flutes of champagne, and in one case, with a large plate of canapes. Tony grinned as he snagged a glass and a few of the little pastries, nibbling on it, cheerfully. Loki watched him for a moment, then said, finally, “So children, is it?”

“Children.” Tony grinned, dipping his glass at him. “The ultimate progression of a perfect man. I hear you two are the experts on this.”

Steve snorted. “What makes you think  _that_ ?”

“Because you have two, I imagine is the reason.” Johnny smirked, wiggling his eyebrows at them. “And you do, definitely, have two. They're adorable. I told Tony we should just babysit for awhile, maybe, see if we actually even _liked_ kids, but naw, no deal, he said, ours or nothing. We're going with the theory that we really ought to have our own.”

“Having two children does not necessarily make a person an expert on children.” Steve smirked slightly.

“I've had far more than two, and I still wouldn't say I’m an expert.” Loki scoffed.

“Hey, we're experts on the science of _how_ this is gonna work.” Tony shrugged, sipping at his champagne. “We just have to get to the actual having stage.”

“Have you decided on a surrogate yet?” Steve asked, politely. He understood, mostly in theory, really, how _this_ was supposed to work, how exactly it was that Tony and Johnny were going to have kids, but he wasn't exactly an expert on it. After all, he was still getting used to the 'modern' world, in some ways, and as much as he had studied modern military and modern society, that didn't necessarily mean that he understood things like this. Hell, from his discussions with the others, he was pretty sure that a lot of other people didn't really understand this whole process, either. 

“No,” Tony sighed, dramatically. “We have not. We're looking.”

“Have you considered asking SHIELD if maybe one of their agents would...?” Loki suggested. “After all, I would think they'd be rather pleased to have more superheroes running around that they could control.”

“We also don't want our child to be under government _control_ , Loki.” Johnny pointed out. 

“Maggie's father is Nick Fury, and she seems to be doing just _fine_.” Steve countered, but glanced at Loki. “I sort of agree with Johnny on this one, though, Loki. I can't blame them for going anywhere _but_ to SHIELD to find a mother. I worked with SHIELD for a long time, and... well. We see how well _that_ turned out.” 

“Frozen in ice for seventy years?” Loki smirked.

Steve sighed. “Yes, thank you, honey, I had been trying to forget about that.”

Loki snickered. “Sorry, dollface.”

“Hn. You two are sickeningly sweet, do you know that?” He patted Johnny's shoulder, lightly, and said, “We're not going to be like them after we have kids, got it?”

“Yes sir,” he snickered. 

“Tony Stark!”

The four of them shifted to face the blond woman as she approached, all too-wide smiles and confident grin. “Tony, Tony, Tony. Such a pleasure to see you again.”

He blinked at her for a moment, then looked at Johnny. “Do I know her? Do we know her? Did I  _sleep_ with her?”

Steve frowned, pondering that. “Not sure.”

Johnny looked the blond – who was starting to look angry, rather than confident and smooth – and frowned. “Not sure, actually. Pepper?”

“I'm Victoria _Samson_ ,” she said, fiercely, as though that was supposed to mean something.

Pepper stepped up beside Johnny a moment later, sipping at a glass of champagne. “Can I help you, boys?”

Tony waved at the blond, with a 'you tell me' sort of expression.

“Ah. Victoria Samson.” Pepper said, after a moment, shaking her head slightly. “Whatever happened to that restraining order we had on you? Ah, wait. It's been at least five years, I suppose it must have expired, by now. I should have kept on top of that.”

“Restraining order?” Johnny asked, intrigued already.

“I have the right to be here, same as anyone else does.” Victoria said, sweetly. “I was invited.”

Loki cleared his throat.

“You didn't.” Pepper sighed. 

“You asked me to _help_ ,” he said, sweetly. “You wouldn't let me invite Von Doom, or anyone else interesting, so naturally, I had to think smaller. She was the best I could think of on short notice. Such an _interesting_ history you two have, Tony.”

Tony's eyes widened. “Oh, you're  _that_ Victoria.”

“Oh this I _gotta_ hear.” Johnny grinned, widely. “C'mon, Tony... don’t leave us hanging!”

“ _Tony_ is an emotional wreck that likes to torture others with the same emotional stagnation that he himself feels, in an effort to keep himself from feeling so very useless and alone. Emotionally crippled.” She said, bitterly.

“Hm. Yes, well... that _does_ sound somewhat familiar.” Tony agreed, after a moment.

“Yep, that's my Tony,” Johnny agreed, patting his lover's shoulder.

Victoria drew herself up taller, and said loftily, “We dated for some time - “

“Three weeks,” Pepper interrupted.

“For _some time_ , and I wrote a book on my experience.” Victoria lifted her chin, stubbornly. “And not only was it a best seller, but it was widely read. There have been university classes held on it, as part of the study of what makes _some_ people do things like donning metal suits and running into battle like a moron. My book _changed_ things.”

“Fine.” Tony grumbled. “So you changed the world by making me out to be a narcissistic ego maniac that dresses in armour to shield my own small inadequacies, thereby making Iron Man _the_ biggest penis extender in the world. What do you want _now_?”

Her harsh expression softened, and she purred, “You  _did_ read it.”

“Yes, I _read_ it. Now what do you _want_?”

Victoria perked up, and said, cheerfully, “So I understand that you and Mr. Storm are trying to have children.”

Johnny casually leaned on Tony's shoulder, silently laying claim. “That's not a secret.”

“The rumour is also going around that you're seeking a surrogate. Which makes perfect sense, since you're both men, and naturally a woman like Pepper Potts is obviously barren - “

“Now look here - “ Pepper started, but Natasha caught her arm, shaking her head quickly. 

“So obviously you need a surrogate who understands you.” Victoria said, sweetly. “So I’m here to volunteer. I’ll be your surrogate.”

Tony gaped at her for a moment, then barked in laughter.

“It's not funny.” Victoria informed him, primly. “This is a very serious offer I am making, and I think it would be wise to consider an offer like this seriously. After all, many women wouldn't offer such a thing, especially not after reading my book, but I know you better than anyone else in the world, Tony. I understand your deep seated needs for children and a future that you can shape. So I’m making this offer, knowing full well what it means. I will bear your children.”

Tony's amused grin had faded a while ago, and he was looking at her like she'd just grown another head.

“Can I call Fury and have SHIELD haul her away?” Johnny suggested.

“Already taken care of.” Coulson interrupted the strange little gathering, giving Victoria the bland government agent smile he was so very good at, offering her hand. “Hello, Miss Samson. I’ve read your book. It changed my life. May I speak with you for a moment?”

Victoria looked sort of confused, mouth open for a moment, as though not sure, what exactly, to say to that.

“Please,” he said, giving her that smile again. “Come, just for a moment.” Coulson had power that didn't make sense, really – it was as though he never tried to force his influence, yet he seemed to ooze the perpetual reminder that he _was_ a man with power, and he _could_ have you arrested with nothing more than a single phone call. 

Finally, the blond nodded, and reluctantly took his hand, letting the government agent lead her away. She did call, though, over her shoulder, “Remember my offer, Tony!”

Tony let out a long breath, and knocked back the rest of his champagne in a single fell swoop. 

“...can I officially veto her off of the list?” Johnny suggested, quietly offering the birthday boy his own glass, which Tony knocked back with about the same enthusiasm as he had the glass before. 

“Please.” Tony agreed.

“I could cast her into a hell dimension, if you'd like?” Loki offered.

“I _might_ take you up on that.” The billionaire sighed, then straightened up a little, and his stressed expression was smoothed away, replaced by the kind of smile that Tony Stark was known for. It was all brightness and light and wonder. It was the kind of smile that had people tumbling over their feet trying to please him. “Come on, now... this is a _party_. We're supposed to be _celebrating_. So either someone get me more champagne, or Johnny-boy starts losing clothes.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and lifted a hand, motioning one of the servers closer. “Champagne, please?”

Johnny smirked slightly, pursing his lips. “I dunno, I could go for some of the latter...”

“That's my cue to leave.” Natasha laughed, and tapped Pepper's elbow, lightly. “Come, leave the boys to their self-destructive spirals.”

Tony snickered, and kissed Johnny's forehead with a exaggerated flair. “Later, firefly. Promise.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Clint rolled over, groaning deeply. Either he'd had  _way_ too much to drink the night before, or someone had shoved one of his arrows straight through his temples. 

He almost wished it was the arrows.

Opening a single eye, he blinked when he realized that he was not laying in his bedroom, but instead in a room he wasn't sure he'd seen before. How drunk  _had_ he been, last night, that he'd somehow managed to tumble into someone else's room? Damn you, Tony Stark, your parties kill way too many brain cells. 

There was a low groan somewhere behind him, and Clint blinked.

Ah, he'd stumbled into a random bedroom  _with_ someone. Well, that would explain why he was pretty sure that the tuxedo crumpled on the floor just in front of him here wasn't his. Good to know, looked like he'd tumbled into the bedroom of a man, rather than a woman. And he was pretty sure that it was a room in the Stark mansion, so that probably meant it was one of the other Avengers. God, that meant either he was in the Stark – and Storm, let's be honest – room, he'd somehow ended up in a  _menage a trois_ with Loki and Steve, or he was laying beside one of two other possible men. 

So he hazarded a guess. “...Bruce?”

The groan he'd heard before came again, only louder this time, and the bed shifted. “Nay, Bruce is not here.”

Clint groaned, and buried his head under his pillow. “... _Thor_ ?”

Thor cheerfully clapped his shoulder, and he winced slightly. “Yes, indeed. That  _champagne_ they served last night leaves a man's head ringing come morning, does it not?”

“...yeah, it does.”

Clint had made some idiotic decisions in his life before, but drinking enough that he slept with  _Thor_ ? That was perhaps a new all time low for him. He was a god, of course, so Clint sort of had to assume that sleeping with a god was a singular experience, but Thor was rough and wild and lacked finesse, and he sort of had to assume that sex with  _Thor_ meant sex with an earthquake. Only... 

He didn't ache. His body didn't feel like he'd just been fucked by a god with all the finesse of a jackhammer. 

Rolling over, he sat up, blinking, and realized that, aside from his ringing head, he didn't ache at all.

No way. 

No  _way_ , he couldn't have topped Thor. 

...could he have?

Thor beamed up at him with a sort of lazy grin, his blond hair mussed, his eyes still heavy with sleep. He was naked as the sun, and about as glorious, scattered bite marks across his collarbone and chest. Maybe there wasn't sex, maybe there was just messing around, or – no, there were empty condom wrappers on the bedside table on the other side of Thor's bed, and Clint groaned, slumping back down into the pillows. “I'm so confused.”

“Did you drink so much that you've forgotten what we got up to last night?” Thor grinned, almost mischievously.

Clint opened one eye, considering him for a moment. “...yeah, I think I did.”

“Perhaps.” The god shifted closer to him, grinning as he ran his massive, callused hand up Clint's bare spine, and the archer shuddered under his touch. “What you need is a recreation of last night's events, then, to refresh your memories.”

Licking his lips, he considered him for a long moment, then swallowed, and said, “Maybe I do.”

_Oh god, Clint, what the fuck are you doing?_

Thor grinned, and leaned over to press his lips firmly to Clint's shoulder, his whiskers scratching against his skin, then the god leaned up and called, “Jane, milady?”

Clint blinked.  _Jane_ ?

He hadn't even realized the shower was running, but a few seconds after Thor called, the shower flicked off, and the gorgeous, willowy brunette that always seemed to be on Thor's arm whenever Thor could manage it, stepped out of the bathroom, a massive towel wrapped around her chest. Her hair was hanging, dripping, around her face, and she smiled softly at the god. “Yes, Thor?”

“Our friend Clint was wondering if we could arrange a recreation of what we three got up to last night.” The god grinned.

Clint shifted onto his side, head practically in Thor's lap when he did, but who cared, he had just discovered that – not only had he not, apparently, made an awful mistake last night, he'd made an awesome one – but he'd discovered that Jane was absolutely gorgeous dripping wet out of the shower. He'd slept with  _both_ of them? He could totally handle sleeping with the two of them. Best of both worlds, man! But maybe he was reading the situation wrong. 

_Let's be honest,_ he told himself.  _The way my life works, I’m definitely reading the situation wrong_ .

And then Jane smiled, and tugged her towel off, letting it drop to the floor with a damp  _thwump_ , and she padded, barefoot and gloriously naked, to the bed. She crawled up onto the bed, and said, lightly, “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

_Best. Drunken. Mistake. Ever._

  
  


\---

  
  


They were going to be responsible, dammit. 

So that was why Tony and Johnny were sitting side by side in what was technically Tony's office in the Stark Tower, behind his desk with a legal notepad set in front of each of them. Tony had his legs crossed, and his elevated foot was bouncing in the air as he tried to stay still and calm, but he was failing pretty dramatically. It may have been the fact that he was sipping on the largest coffee that Johnny had ever seen. Apparently, owning Starkbucks means that if you want a  _huge_ cup of java, you  _get_ a huge cup of java. Johnny was clicking his pen almost obsessively, and finally said, “You know, this  _could_ go really badly. Right?”

“I know.” Tony peered at him over the rim of his cup. “There's still time to back out if you're getting cold feet. I’ll guilt you _forever_ , but there's still time.”

“I am _not_ backing out.” He groaned, shaking his head. “Are you just going to keep asking if I’ll back out until I _do_?”

“I'm being prudent.” The billionaire said, loftily. 

“Prudence isn't even a _thing_ for you, Tony,” Johnny rolled his eyes, and reached over to wrap his fingers around the other's tie. Tugging him forward, he pressed their brows together, and said, firmly, “I know you're the one doing the math, but I’ve done the thinking too, you know. And I know we're not... _together_ , but yeah, I think we'll be damn good parents. Just don't want you to get your hopes up only to discover that it's going to be Victorias coming in today.”

Tony snorted, and set the coffee down before saying, “Yeah, but maybe we're gonna meet the mother of our children today, firefly.”

“Mm. Guess that'd be all right.” He grinned, and kissed him firmly. 

Pepper cleared her throat at the door.

“One minute, we're sort of busy at the moment,” Tony held up a hand, and didn't stop kissing Johnny, who, for his part, was content to hold onto Tony's tie, tightly, and kiss him back, eagerly. 

“Tony, the candidates are waiting.” She said, and they could hear her toe tapping on the floor.

Johnny groaned softly against the other's mouth, and reluctantly broke the kiss to murmur, “Suppose it's time we be responsible, Tony.”

“Mmm... since it _was_ my idea to have children, I suppose you're right.” He sighed heavily, and reluctantly sat back in his chair, fixing his tie as he licked the lips that Johnny had been biting only moments before, then grinned crookedly at Pepper. “Heya, Pep. So you've brought some possible baby mamas here for us to check out, huh? Well then... bring them on in.” 

  
  


\---

  
  


The first woman that walked in was tall, curvy, with legs that went on for metaphorical miles and had acres of dark, curly hair falling in a cascade down her back. She smiled, immediately, when she came in, her heels clicking on the floor as she walked, until she paused directly in front of the desk, leaning towards them slightly, offering her hand, delicately. This, naturally, partially exposed one of the most  _magnificent_ sets of breasts that either of them had ever seen, and were it not for the fact that they were both being “responsible”, the two of them might have been competing for who got to seduce the brunette first.

“A pleasure to meet you,” she said, with a voice like honey, and added, “My name is Ananastasia Rinaldi. You can call me Anna.”

“Anna.” Johnny shifted forward, and grinned broadly at her. “A _pleasure_ to meet you. I’m Johnny Storm, but you know that.”

She laughed, delicately, and settled in the seat across from them, crossing her legs. Naturally, that did little to hide the fact that she was wearing a  _very_ short skirt, and folded her hands in her lap. “Well then... so I understand you're looking for a surrogate.”

Tony shifted forward, and grinned. “We sure are.”

Anna dipped her head. “I also hear you're willing to pay.”

“We are that,” he nodded, and shifted his coffee off to the side, tugging his notepad closer to himself. “So... Anna. Tell us about yourself.”

She considered that for a moment, then said, “Well, I’m a tattoo artist. I’m told I’m very skilled at what it is I do.”

“Tattoos.” Johnny purred, liking the sounds of that, then wiggled his eyebrows. “Got any naughty ones you wanna show us?”

Tony smirked, and smacked his shoulder. “The better question is, do you have any that would be potentially marred by pregnancy? I would not want you to destroy any of that amazing art carrying our child around.”

Anna laughed, and smiled, almost wolfishly. “I think I’d be fine.”

Johnny leaned back in his chair, and grinned over at Tony. “I like her. I like her a lot. She is gorgeous and spunky, and – do you know anything about superheroes?” He asked, abruptly.

Her confident smile faded slightly. “I've encountered some before.”

Tony arched a brow, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, that sounds like there's a story.”

“I don't like Deadpool.” She said, at last.

“Yeah, well... who does?” Johnny laughed, and grinned at Tony. “C'mon, she's _gorgeous_.”

“She is.” He agreed.

Anna rolled her eyes, and shifted slightly in his chair.

“Well, let's take a look at your medical reports, hm?” Tony grinned at her, confidently, and picked up the file folder that was sitting on the top of the stack that they'd brought, and flicked through it for a moment, his cheerful smile fading a little. Finally, he lowered it a little, peering at her over the edge of the folder.

She arched a brow, waiting.

Johnny leaned closer to him, and murmured, “What is it?”

Tony turned the folder towards him, and his eyes widened. “Well. That's not a good sign.”

“What is it?” She demanded.

“Are you aware of the fact that there are several bullets still inside your body?” Tony asked, as casually as though he was asking about the weather. “That seems like it could be something that wouldn't be terribly good for a baby, you know, to be around bullets and all.”

Anna pursed her lips, and when she was angry, she looked a little less alluring than she had a moment before. “I told you, I don't like Deadpool.”

“ _Oh_. Deadpool's trying to kill her.” Johnny held up his hands. “ _Bad_ mojo there.”

“Yeah. Sorry, Anna, you are _gorgeous_ , and clearly smart, and it would be an honour to work with you, but... ah... I think we're gonna have to pass.” Tony said, then paused, and dug in the inside pocket of his jacket, flicking a card out towards her. “But gimme a call sometime.”

Anna huffed, but stood, and snatched the card out of his fingers.

“If you want me, call him anyway,” Johnny grinned. “He hates doing it, but he's basically my secretary.”

“I am _not_ your secretary!” Tony gaped at him.

“You are _so_ my secretary,” he rolled his eyes, and beamed up at the woman, wiggling his eyebrows. “Call me.”

“Hn.” Anna smirked faintly, and marched back out of the room.

Both actually leaned closer to each other as they watched her leave, then Johnny arched a brow just as the door closed. “...you sure bullets are bad for babies?”

“Yes.” Tony said, and reluctantly slumped back. “But I could watch that woman walk away for days.”

Johnny nodded, and whistled. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“Hello,” the next woman, a brisk, business like blond said as she walked into the room. Johnny's eyebrows rose in response to _hers_ , which sort of looked like she'd drawn them on, but they weren't here to evaluate her eyebrows, they were here to evaluate her potential as a surrogate mother. “Victoria Murdock.”

“I am _so_ glad you said Murdock, we've been having issues with a different blond named Victoria,” Tony grinned, and offered her his hand. 

She shook it, then Johnny's, before sitting neatly before them.

“So.” Johnny hesitated, then shrugged. “What makes you the perfect surrogate for our child, then?”

“I'm fireproof.” She said, calmly.

Tony blinked, and looked at Johnny. “Huh. Well. Fireproof. That sounds perfect.”

“No kidding.” Johnny blinked. “Fireproof is _good_ , there's a chance any kid I’d have would be all, you know... _flaming_. Huh. Right then, fireproof is a big plus in your favour.”

Victoria dipped her head, confidently.

“So... how does one _become_ fireproof, anyhow?” Tony asked, considering that. “Mutant, gamma radiation...?”

“Experimentation.” She hesitated, then continued on, calmly, “I once called Asbestos Girl.”

Tony paused, mouth open slightly. “... _Asbestos Girl_ .”

Johnny glanced at him. “...isn't asbestos, like... the biggest carcinogenic on the whole planet? Like... never breathe asbestos, or you'll turn into a giant ball of cancer?”

Victoria cleared her throat. “That's an exaggeration...”

“How much of an exaggeration can that _possibly_ be, you breathe that stuff in, you've got lung cancer for life.” Tony narrowed his eyes at her, suspiciously. “Have you even been _tested_ for that shit?”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

“... _are_ you a big ball of cancer?” Johnny asked, slowly.

“I _recovered_.” Victoria said, at last. “Yes, I had cancer. I am a cancer _survivor_.”

“...I'm not sure fireproof is a good tradeoff for cancer in terms of our kid.” Johnny shifted to look at Tony. “I'm a no.”

“I'm a no too, thanks but no thanks.”

“You are insensitive - “ She started, but before she could finish, Tony cut her off.

“You came to _our_ house, looking to carry _our_ baby here, we get the power of veto, and we're allowed to be as insensitive as we like. If you really take offense at being a big ball of cancer, talk to Pepper Potts, she'll take care of it. She's good at that.” He grinned, and waved his hand at the door. “Shoo.”

Victoria stormed out of the room.

“... _big_ ol' ball of cancer.” Johnny shuddered.

  
  


\---

  
  


“Jeanne-Marie Beaubier.” Tony read aloud off of the top of the next folder, and lowered it to consider the woman, thoughtfully. She was quietly sitting in her seat, dark waves tumbling around her face as she smiled softly at them. 

“Yes, that is me,” she agreed, softly. 

“So how come you want to be our surrogate?” Tony asked, closing the folder as he considered her.

“I love children,” she said, softly. She had a lilting, French accent when she spoke, that made all of her words almost musical. “I used to teach them. I really think that children are the future, and I think that you two would probably give a very good life to a child. I also think that, were you child more... unusual, you'd raise them anyway.”

“Well,” Johnny shrugged. “I _can_ light myself on fire.”

“Mutant?” Tony guessed.

She nodded, quietly, hands folded tightly in her lap.

“Not such an awesome life as a young mutant?” Johnny arched a brow. 

Jeanne-Marie hesitated. “No, it wasn't.”

“Well, but trying to make the world a better place for other young mutants is a good thing.” Tony shrugged, glancing at Johnny. “Short list?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“Well.” She hesitated, and they both looked at her in surprise. “You should probably know about Aurora.”

The men hesitated. “Aurora? Who's Aurora?”

Jeanne-Marie licked her lips, then cleared her throat. “She's... um. My other half.”

“What, like your girlfriend?” Johnny shrugged. “Hell, we don't care about that, we're two men, remember?”

“No, Aurora is... _me_.” She squirmed slightly. “She's my other personality.”

They blinked at her for a long moment. 

Finally, Tony said, “Like... Dissociative Identity Disorder. Alternate personalities. Sybil.”

She cleared her throat, then nodded. “Something like that.”

“Huh.” He leaned back again. 

“ _Huh_.” Johnny agreed. 

“Should I, ah... go?” She asked, quietly. 

“Well, not too far.” Tony pursed his lips. “We'll ah... we'll short list the both of you. We'll call you, okay?”

Jeanne-Marie nodded, and stood. “All right.”

They waited until she was gone before Johnny pointed out, “It could be like getting two baby mamas for the price of one.”

“True, but what if one personality decides she doesn't want to be a surrogate?”

His eyes widened. “Oh, shit, yeah.”

“I'll still put 'em both on the short list... at least they're not big balls of cancer,” Tony shrugged.

  
  


\---

  
  


“So, who's next?” Johnny leaned over to peer at the list that lay on the desk between them. 

“I dunno,” Tony sighed, sunglasses on as he leaned back on two legs of his chair, sipping at the new coffee that Pepper had brought him. “Who's next?”

“Ah... Sunset Bain.” He read off the list.

Tony's chair slammed back down onto four legs. “ _What_ ?”

Johnny blinked at him. “Sunset Bain.”

“ _No_. No, no no no no. Not a chance. Fuck that. She is _not_ going to be the mother of our children.”

“...oh-kay?”

“I dated her in college.” He glowered at him. “She broke into my building, stole a bunch of Stark tech, and made her own company out of it. And if there's anything I hate more than people stealing my tech...”

“It's people stealing your tech _and_ your heart?” He suggested.

“As _if_ , she didn't steal my _heart_.” Tony rolled his eyes, and pushed his glasses up onto his head. “But she _did_ steal my tech. Fuck her.”

“Literally, or...?”

“ _Figuratively_ , this time.” He set his coffee down, scooped up a pen, and scrawled a series of thick dark lines through her name. “Screw that, I don't want any backstabbing tech stealers carrying our child, you fine with _that_?”

“Sure, fine with that,” he shrugged.

  
  


\---

  
  


Elsa Bloodstone was a cheerful, bright eyed blond that all but bounced into the office, and sat primly in the seat across from them, beaming at them. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Johnny grinned, looking her up and down. “You sure you want to be a surrogate?”

“Of course I do,” she beamed. “It would be sort of nice and normal for a change, wouldn't it?”

“...for a change?” Tony asked, arching a brow. 

“Well, I _do_ fight vampires.” She shrugged.

“Vam – who invited Buffy?” Tony twisted to look at Johnny, who shrugged.

  
  


\---

  
  


“...is she licking herself?” Johnny whispered.

Tony pursed his lips, considering Tatiana Caban, who had looked pretty normal when she'd walked into the room, but now was sort of quietly licking the back of her hand, like she was a cat grooming herself. “Yes,” he said, finally. “She is.”

“Um.” Johnny cleared his throat. “Tatiana? Are you okay?”

She blinked at him with almost cat-like eyes, then flushed and jerked her hand down, embarrassed. “I'm sorry! I wasn't even thinking, I just... sorry about that. It's my mutation, it's... complicated.”

“Are you like, a cat lady?” Tony narrowed his eyes.

“I take on the aspects of animals,” she agreed, after a moment. “It's part of the reason I think I’d be good for this. I take care of people, I take care of animals, I would never let anyone be hurt if I could manage it...”

“But you act like an animal,” Johnny considered that, frowning. Abruptly, he leaned forward, and said, slowly, “You don't use a litter box, do you?”

“Ha. Ha.” She said, dryly.

“Well, uh... let's short list her,” Tony shrugged.

“Works for me.” Johnny smirked. “Meow.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“Woah, I haven't done anything!” Tony threw up his hands, then hesitated. “This time. I swear.”

Johnny blinked at him, then blinked at the newcomer, a woman who looked entirely amused by his reaction. She had chestnut hair tied up in a neat ponytail, black framed glasses, and wore a heavy black leather jacket. Of course, naturally, he tried to figure out what was  _under_ the jacket, which was when he noticed the heavy leather gunbelt – gun in tow – and the golden police badge glinting on the long necklace around her neck. “Woah!” He agreed. “We didn't do anything, officer!”

“I'm aware,” she rolled her eyes, and slid into the seat across the desk. “Hey, Tony.”

“Hey, Officer Cooper...” he grinned, awkwardly.

“Detective, now. I’ve moved up in the world.” She shook her head, and smiled at them. “Keeping out of trouble, aren't you?”

“Me? Of course.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “I'm a saint.”

She snorted. “I've heard that one before.”

“So.” Johnny considered them both for a moment, then scratched the back of his neck. “You know each other. Awesome. I take it this means you're cool with the whole superhero thing...”

“I dated Peter Parker.” Carlie Cooper shrugged, shifting slightly in her seat, comfortably. “And I have Spider-Man's logo tattooed on my hip. So you tell me.”

Tony hesitated, looking back and forth between Johnny and Carlie, then finally ventured, “Is that a coincidence, or...?”

“Or I know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man,” she snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Right.” Tony nodded. “Good. Well. So how _are_ the NYC cop benefits, anyway? Like... taking maternity leave, it's not going to screw your chances of promotion or anything like that, are they?”

“Not really,” she shook her head. “I get six months leave for maternity, and because I wouldn't be raising the kid, I’d probably be fine.”

“Woah, only six months?” He glanced at Tony. 

“Yeah... you really need more than six months.” Tony frowned slightly. “I mean, the treatments alone, just to get prepped for the pregnancy, that takes about a month, and it's hard to work during that time, and you're a police officer, I mean, your job is _dangerous_ , I don't really think that either of us really wants to risk you getting shot while carrying our baby, or anything.”

Carlie huffed slightly. “I'm not going to quit for you guys.”

“We never said you should,” Johnny said, quickly.

“It's just that six months doesn't really...” Tony made a face. “But we'll put you on the short list? You know, in case you want more paid time off, or something, I mean, we _are_ paying.”

“I'll let you know if I can take a year, or something,” she agreed, then swore when her phone started ringing. “I gotta take this.”

“If you find any murdered hookers, it wasn't me!” Tony called.

Johnny snickered.

Carlie gave him a dry look, then darted out of the office, heading for the hallway. 

“At least she's got a head on her shoulders,” Johnny shrugged. 

“And some fine things _under_ those shoulders,” he grinned, and nudged his elbow. “Detective Cooper is _totally_ on the list. That chick is in _roller derbies_. That's badass. That is _totally_ badass.”

“...can I be in roller derbies?”

“Yes, firefly,” Tony snickered, leaning over to kiss him firmly. “You can be in roller derbies.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Katherine Farrell smiled as she sat down across from them, holding a notebook as she considered them both. “So.” She said, cheerfully. “Tell me, what makes two superheroes decide they want to have a child?”

“I dunno, cause we can?” Tony shrugged, considering her for a moment. “Don't you work for the Bugle?”

“I do,” she agreed, tapping her pen on her paper. “So, how do you think you'll handle heroics and child rearing? Do you think you'll do your heroing in shifts, or will you be finding daycares?”

“I'm sorry, is this us interviewing you for being a surrogate, or _you_ interviewing _us_ for the Bugle?” Tony arched a brow.

“...it may be a little of both.” She shrugged.

“You do know that neither of us actually wear _capes_ , right?” Johnny arched a brow.

“Sure,” she grinned, “But just because you don't wear a cape doesn't mean you aren't one of my “Capes”, because you are definitely one of them. Come on, Iron Man and the Human Torch, having children? That is about the biggest story of the decade, after Captain America marrying a villain! I mean, hello... this is huge!”

“So do you actually _want_ to be part of this, or are you just trying to interview?” Johnny frowned.

“It _would_ be kind of fun to be part of a story, and not just because I got kidnapped for working at the Bugle,” Kat shrugged, grinning.

“We'll keep that in mind.” Tony was subtly shaking his head at Johnny.

“Well, then can I ask a few more questions?” She asked, eagerly.

“...um. Schedule something with Pepper.”

“ _Awesome_.” She grinned.

  
  


\---

  
  


Both of their eyes widened when the next woman marched into the room, briskly, boots ringing on the floor. 

“...I didn't think we'd be seeing any SHIELD agents in here.” Tony admitted, shifting forward, and cleared his throat. “Hey there, Agent Johnson.”

Daisy arched a single brow, and sat. She was dressed in her SHIELD uniform, naturally – neither of them were sure if they had ever seen her in anything else – and her black hair was clipped short. “Yes, well... you wouldn't recruit me, so I guess I can play my part in the Avengers this way.”

“...are you actually offering to have our baby so that you can be part of the Avengers?” Johnny asked, sort of incredulously.

“No.” She said, and smirked slightly. 

Tony cleared his throat, and tapped her file folder, lightly. “So, why would Nick Fury's baby girl be coming in and trying to be our surrogate? I mean, aren't you supposed to be the most badass agent he's got left? Second in command of SHIELD and all that?”

“Yes,” she nodded, calmly.

“So... shouldn't you be, you know, _not_ pregnant, in case they need you to take over SHIELD?”

“I'm fairly sure I could handle running SHIELD and carrying your child.” Daisy said, tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair, confidently.

Tony cleared his throat. “I don't even doubt that.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“That is the _coolest_ arm I have ever seen.” Johnny shifted forward, eyes wide.

Misty Knight grinned, and offered her arm to the blond, looking amused when he brushed his fingers over the smooth surfaces. 

“What is this _made_ out of?” He demanded, touching the little fine details with interest.

“Antartic vibranium and diamonds,” Tony grinned, and when his lover looked at him in surprise, he just beamed even broader. “What, it doesn't have Stark Industries written all over it?”

“No, it doesn't,” she laughed, grinning at Tony. “Because I refused to let you use my arm as corporate advertising, even if it was awesome.”

“I know, it totally was awesome.” He agreed, and rapped his knuckles off of the metal surface. “How's it treating you, anyway? It hasn't been acting up, or having any technical difficulties, has it? Cause I can do some modifications, if you need them...”

“It's perfect, Tony.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Relax.”

“Tony makes robotic arms, who knew?” Johnny snorted.

“Only the whole _world_ , this most recent update has some of the same tech as the Iron Man suit.” He rolled his eyes. “And it is _damn_ impressive, if I do say so myself.”

“You do,” she smirked, and finally sat down, cheerfully. “Over and over.”

“Yeah, I’m good at that.” Tony snickered.

Misty rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms, one mechanical, one biological, and grinned at them both. “So you two want kids.”

“We do,” Tony agreed.

“Thought maybe I could give a hand with that,” she smiled at them.

“You're not just doing this because you feel like you have to, are you?” Tony asked, frowning a little. He looked a little concerned, to be honest. “I mean, because of the arm. Because I have told you, again and again, Misty, I did that because you deserved it. You were a hero, you saved everyone when you stopped the detonation... don't do this because you feel like you owe me, or something. If you want to offer because you want to offer, well... then that's one thing. But if it's because you feel like you owe me...”

“It's not because I feel like I owe you,” she promised, but that sort of rang hollow, really.

Tony nodded, and smiled at her. “Misty... is it true that you've had some trouble with pregnancy lately, though?”

She hesitated.

Johnny glanced between the two of them, quietly. 

Finally, Misty nodded, and murmured, “Yeah, I have had some troubles. I suppose you heard that I was pregnant... it was a false pregnancy. I wasn't actually pregnant.”

“Do you think that's gonna affect your ability to get pregnant now?” Johnny asked, quietly. 

“I don't... think so.” Misty said, finally.

“Well, we'll see, right?” Tony smiled. “I'll put you on the short list, Misty. Thank you.”

She stood. “Thanks, Tony. Good luck.”

Once she had left, Johnny glanced at him. “Is she actually on the short list?”

“No,” Tony smiled faintly. “She's a good woman, and her motives are good, but... I don't want our child to be born because she feels like she owes me.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Golden hair swinging down around her hips, Karla Sofen settled on the seat, resting her hands lightly on her knees as she smiled at them, almost deviously. She was a woman that used sex appeal to her advantage whenever possible – and right now, she clearly thought that was possible.

“So,” she said, with a grin. “How much does this job pay?”

“Well.” Tony blinked. “That hasn't exactly been finalized, but - “

“Are we talking six figures, here? Or seven? Because I’m not sure it's really worth my time unless it's a minimum of seven figures, really.” Karla said, calmly.

“Huh. Seven figures.” Johnny considered Tony. “Are we considering seven figures for this project? Are you a seven figure kind of man, Tony?”

“I'm a multi-eight figure kind of man, firefly, you know that.”

“Oooh, so you are.” He grinned, and smirked mischievously at Karla as he leaned over, resting his head on Tony's shoulder. “Ain't I lucky?”

She huffed slightly, and tapped her toes on the floor. “Come now. I am here to be interviewed for a surrogacy position, am I not? What other benefits am I being given, for this position? Do I have to see the child, after it's born?”

Tony hesitated. “No...”

“Good.” She nodded, and tapped her fingers on her knees. “Well, I’d do it.”

“...and if they told you that there could be complications, that if you carried the child to full term, there was a chance they would have to operate to save your life? It wouldn't kill you, but there was a chance that you would have scars. At, say, three months in?” Tony asked, frowning. Beside him, Johnny sat up a little, resting a hand on Tony's thigh as he considered her, seriously. 

“Then I would get it _gone_ , obviously.” Karla said, immediately.

“Hm. Thank you, for your interest.” Tony said, finally. “We'll get back to you.”

Only, of course, after that response, they wouldn't.

  
  


\---

  
  


“Do you _have_ a real name?” Johnny asked, after a moment.

Screwball laughed, grinning at them. She was wearing a white helmet with a bright yellow visor, little whisps of purple hair just sneaking out of the edges of her helmet. “Sure, I have a real name. But I’m not going to tell you what it is. I don't tell anyone what it is.”

“Right then.” He mulled over that for a moment. “Screwball it is, then... so why do you want to be our surrogate?”

“Because it's kickass!” She laughed, eagerly. “Think about it, Iron Man and Human Torch. Having kids. That is going to be _awesome_. And I figure that the whole world is fascinated by it, right?”

Tony shrugged. “Probably?”

“So here's how I see it. I be your surrogate, I can document the whole process, and the pregnancy and everything, and I’ll put it online.”

They blinked at her. “...online.” Tony said, at last.

“Yeah! Like, on Youtube, or Tumblr – oh hell, they would _love_ it on Tumblr – and people could like, watch me having your kids and everything, we could put the delivery on, too, even, and you would totally be a viral sensation!”

“...right.” Tony frowned. “Not _actually_ a bad idea, except that Pepper would murder me. It would be a total public relations nightmare, wouldn't it?”

She scoffed. “Public relations, public schlemations.”

“...that's one way to look at it,” Johnny grinned.

  
  


\---

  
  


Tony and Johnny sat side by side, jaws hanging, eyes wide as they stared at the newest candidate.

Finally, Johnny said, “What happened to your  _head_ ?”

Thursday Rubinstein crossed her arms over her chest. From the shoulders down, she looked perfectly normal, albeit dressed only in ruby colours, but from the shoulders up, instead of a neck, she had a smooth metal tube, and instead of a head, she had a perfectly round sphere that reflected every bit of light. “I removed it, and replaced it with an organic computer. It's superior.”

“...huh.” Tony said.

  
  


\---

  
  


The door closed firmly, and Mary Jane Watson all but stormed into the room, sitting heavily in the seat, and let out a huffing sigh before she crossed her legs and considered them. “Hi.”

“Someone's not having an awesome day?” Johnny guessed, arching a brow. 

“You know emotional stability is on the list of qualities we're looking for in a surrogate, right?” Tony arched a brow, tapping his pen on the legal pad, which by now was less of a short list of possible surrogates and more of a doodle pad of designs and ideas. “So if this is your - “

“I had a bad _day_ , Tony, relax.” Mary Jane said, firmly, jaw clenched, tightly. “I'm fine.”

Some girls look best when they're crying, a few crystalline tears spilling from their eyes. This isn't normal, as crying does the same thing to almost everyone – making them blubbery red messes – but there are some. Some look best with a purely neutral expression, which is why you see so many super models staring at the camera with a vacant, blank stare. Most girls look best when they're smiling, eyes bright and lips turned upwards to show just how much they're enjoying themselves. There is another type, though, rare but remarkable, and Mary Jane Watson was one of those special ones. She looked her best when she was furious.

Her green eyes all but glowed, and it almost made her red curls seem like flames, licking at her jaw. With fists clenched tightly on the arms of the chair, she was an utter vision of loveliness.

A pissed off vision of loveliness, but loveliness nonetheless.

Tony glanced at Johnny, considering that for a moment, then asked, “So, why do you want to be a surrogate?”

“Honestly?” Mary Jane considered them both for a long moment. “Because I think you guys are likely gonna get a lot of flack from society, for planning this. Considering our mutual friends, I sort of expect you're going to get a lot of crazies and and otherwise wholly unsuitable candidates coming in. so I figured I’d give you an option that was a little more normal. I don't have an X-gene or anything, so I don't know how my body would do carrying a child that was possibly super, but I know about all of that stuff, and I know that between Dr. McCoy and Dr. Richards and Dr. Banner, you've probably figured all of that out. I really think that anyone who's willing to try as damn hard as you two are to have children ought to be able to, and I don't think it's fair that it's this difficult. Hell, if Johnny was a chick, he'd have probably had a half dozen pregnancy “scares” by now. I think between the two of you, that kid would have the very best of everything. And dammit, I sort of think you should have the right to make the same mistakes as everyone else, superhero or no.”

“Huh.” Johnny said, after a moment.

“Well, ah,” Tony tapped his pen again. “You do know that, genetically, the baby would be ours, right? And we'd want you to sign off on this, that you have no legal right to the child, they'd be _ours_.”

“Would I still be allowed to see them, sometimes?” She asked. “Just to see how well they're doing, and everything. I don't want to be their mother, I just want to see how well the child I carried is turning out.”

Johnny met Tony's eyes, holding his gaze for a long moment as he considered that, thoughtfully. “I'm okay with that.”

Tony frowned for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I’d be all right with that.”

“Then yeah,” she shrugged. “I'd be all right with that. They'd be your kid, not mine. I’m just the one that'll be carrying them.”

“Yeah, that's...” Tony glanced at Johnny. “That's kinda it exactly. Huh.”

“Look, I know you've probably got lots of other candidates - “

“Not really,” Johnny muttered, mostly to himself.

“But I just wanted to give you a good option. I’m healthy, I’m sane, I’m in the superhero know and all, and I think you two deserve to be dads. So yeah, that's why I think I’d be a good surrogate for you.”

Tony glanced at Johnny, who nodded, then shifted forward to grin at her. “When can you start?”

  
  


\---

  
  


Apparently “starting to be a surrogate” was considerably more difficult than just starting a job would be.

Mary Jane had to go through about a week of medical testing before the very expensive doctors that worked in Stark Labs declared her a viable potential surrogate, then they'd needed to hit her with a load of hormones that increased her ovulation, then those doctors had needed to “harvest” the eggs, which sounded far more clinical than the birth of any child should be.

She'd complained that it was actually uncomfortable, but Mary Jane was sort of taking it all in stride. Even Pepper approved of their choice, which was pretty much a giant victory right there.

There had been an awful lot of legalese to go with that approval, though, as Pepper had laid out some very extensive and complicated looking contracts, and Natasha – who really was good with all that legal stuff, even if she had originally only been in the Stark Tech legal department because of SHIELD planting her there – had explained the contracts for them. There were so many fine points that it made their heads swim, but finally, they had managed to sign, and there they were, legally bound into a terribly complicated relationship that would last for nine months or until the child was born – whichever came first. 

That just meant that actually had to get the child  _created_ , now.

“Now,” one of the doctors had warned, when Tony and Johnny had gone into the lab to provide the DNA necessary for them to start work, “This isn't an exact science. We may have a lot of failures before we have some successes.”

“But it's gonna work, right?” Johnny asked, looking nervous for the first time.

“Oh yes,” the doctor nodded. “We'll make sure it works.”

And then they suggested he speak to a psychologist to make sure he was “emotionally prepared”. 

“This is getting a little more complicated than I had sort of expected,” Johnny admitted, as he tugged on his leather jacket, quietly, looking at his lover, who had already tugged his sports jacket on. “I mean, I knew that this wasn't going to be easy, but... they're making it sound like we're going to be in for the trial of our lives, or something.”

“We might be.” Tony admitted, then abruptly shoved his sunglasses up, and moved closer to Johnny, cupping his jaw. “Look at me, Johnny.”

Johnny licked his lips, but met his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Look, I picked you for a reason. I wanted to have children with you for a _reason_ , you know that, right? I didn't just pick you cause you were the most recent person I had sex with, because if _that_ was the criteria, well... well, it wasn't the criteria. I picked you because you're strong, and smart, and if you repeat any of this information to anyone, I will deny it forever, and they'll believe me, not you, because I would _never_ say things like that.” He smirked, and curled his fingers against his jaw and the back of his neck, pulling Johnny a little closer, so that he could press his lips firmly to his. “It may be a long road, but we'll make it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to Tony's. “And you're right, no one would _ever_ believe that you would say that.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Tony was having a wonderful dream. A wonderful, amazing,  _deliriously_ delicious dream. The kind of dream that has people waking up to sticky blankets and a wonderful warm glow. 

Sighing softly, happily, he slowly woke, and opened his eyes to realize that he  _wasn't_ just dreaming, that he was having wonderful dreams of being sucked off because a naked blond was knelt between his knees, sucking him off.  _Well_ ! That explained an awful lot, didn't it?

“Mmm, well! Is this the kind of wake ups I can get used to?”Tony grinned, reaching out to run his fingers over Johnny's close-to-the-skull cropped hair. 

Johnny snickered, looking up at him as he curled his tongue expertly around him in that  _exact_ way that never failed to make Tony's heart skip a beat, and Tony's head fell back against the pillows, groaning deeply. His spine arched, and he moaned, “Fuck, firefly... too fucking good at that...”

“Mmm,” he hummed, against his dick, and Tony probably shouldn't have been all _that_ surprised when that was enough to tip him over the edge.

It took him a few moments before he was seeing anything but just white, and Johnny crawled up beside him on the bed, flopping down beside him as he curled into his side, pinning Tony's arm beneath him, curling his hand lightly on top of the arc reactor, which glowed bright blue in the dimness of the room, not quite lit by the early morning light outside. Shifting slightly, Tony ran his fingertips down the back of the other man's head and neck, and said, finally, “So,  _that_ was some wake up call. What'd I do to deserve this?”

“You were in bed.” 

Tony arched a brow, twisting slightly to consider him. “Huh?”

“Do you realize that you haven't been in _bed_ now for... oh let's see... three weeks?” Johnny arched a brow, resting his elbow on the pillows and rested his head on his hand. “Ever since Mary Jane went in for the embryo implantation and all that, you've been working yourself ragged, until you pass out in the lab. So when I woke up this morning and realized that I was not alone in your bed for the first time in almost a _month_ , yeah, I decided that you deserved a reward. So. Perfect wake up call, I think.”

“It's not as though I’ve been neglecting you,” Tony rolled his eyes, shaking his head, slightly.

“You have _so_.” Johnny snorted.

“I have not! We had sex in the lab the other day!”

“...Tony... you bent me over the drafting table, and continued to _work_ while you fucked me. Are you kidding? That is sort of considered neglectful.”

“As _I_ remember it, it was kinky.” Tony said, loftily, and trailed his fingertips up Johnny's bare hip, idly, and down again, tracing the lines of his bones under his skin. His lover _was_ remarkably patient. He'd never really had a lover that would wait through his grumpiness and getting distracted by projects for weeks at a time, before. Usually, anyone he managed to get into more than just a one-night stand with would have left long before now. But this was infinitely more complicated – sure, the magazines liked to describe them as a power couple and everything, but what they had was really more of a one-night-at-a-time stand that had sort of somehow managed to stretch into four years. Pointing out that it had still been going on for four years really made it seem like a relationship or something, but Tony had never done well with relationships. He'd always ended up destroying them, somehow – so he didn't do them. Simple as that. They weren't _together_ , they just slept in the same bed on a regular basis on had an awful lot of sex together. 

And were having children together, of course. That probably didn't help the impression that they  _were_ together.

“Worry is driving you out of your mind, isn't it?” Johnny said, after a moment.

“Do I seriously look like that much of a pansy?” He arched a brow.

“Yes,” Johnny smirked, and shifted closer to him, cupping his jaw as he kissed him, slowly, tasting like Tony. “You do. You look like you have been running yourself ragged, you look like a man that hasn't slept properly in a month, and you look like a man that is desperately hoping to all hell that the mother of his children is pregnant. It would almost be adorable, if it wasn't driving me batty.”

Tony snorted, squeezing the other's hip. “Why would it be driving you batty?”

“Because I’m the other dad here,” Johnny rolled his eyes. “So I’m just as worried, and while I want to be all zen and relaxed and deal with this stress by getting _wicked_ drunk and partying in the hot tub for hours, I have to make sure you're staying somewhat upright. There's _also_ the whole thing where I am a raging ball of horniness and messed up hormones and shit, and _you_ are throwing yourself into this work of yours so hard that you've _sort_ of forgotten about sex. Tony Stark, too busy to have sex? What is the world _coming_ to?”

“I – ah.” He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I have been busy.”

“I noticed.” He smirked.

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. “Oi, if you're horny, go find someone to fuck. Or fuck you. That's not a hard solution.”

“Yeah, _well_ , you're the only one with Tony Stark's cock. And I dunno if anyone has told you this, but you've _got_ an addictive cock, Tony. Besides, I’ve been too stressed to go out and just find someone. I’m worried about whether or not this has worked.”

“It's _going_ to work.” Tony said, firmly, then abruptly pushed Johnny onto his back, and swung his leg over his hip, shifting up to sit up properly, pinning the blond down to the bed as he looked down at him, his hands curled on his stomach. Yeah, he could feel the other's enjoyment of _that_ as he shifted slightly, rocking. “Mary Jane was a good choice, she's going to be a good carrier for our kid, and we're going to have a kid, Johnny. Now, we've had _way_ too much touchy feely emotional stuff this morning. I think it's about time we get you over some of this 'stressed out horniness' you're suffering with.”

“Well, _this_ is a plan I can get behind.” Johnny grinned, rocking his hips, grinning.

“I sort of figured it was your kind of thing,” he grinned, then groaned when someone knocked firmly on the bedroom door, and let his head roll back on his shoulders. “...seriously?”

“Come on, you should be used to this, by now.” Johnny snickered, resting his hands on Tony's thighs, and called, “It's open!”

“It's open?” Tony blinked down at him. “Why is it open?”

“Because you have no shame?” 

“Mmm.” Tony frowned slightly as he considered that, then nodded. “Yeah, I can accept that answer.”

The door opened, then Mary Jane closed it behind her, smiling faintly. “You guys are naked.”

“Yeah, we tend to do that.” Johnny agreed, grinning. “We like being naked. Usually we're more sweaty and sticky and, you know, have interlocking parts involved and everything, but the morning is still young. There's time.”

“True.” She laughed, and stepped up to the side of the bed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your Avengers are sort of strange, you know that, right?”

“Welcome to Stark mansion, sweetheart, where everything is strange.” Tony almost mockingly bowed, making absolutely no effort to get off of Johnny's lap. She was the future bearer of their child, he figured she should have no problem with seeing the fathers naked. Besides, he had the arc reactor still glowing in his chest, and as he had told his lover many times before, it counted as clothes. “So what do we owe the honour of seeing you this early in the morning, anyway?”

Mary Jane grinned. “It took.”

“Huh?” Johnny blinked, looking confused. “What do you mean?”

Tony, however, apparently got it, because he let out a shout of joy, and threw his hands into the air. “Huzzah! Drinks all around!”

“Woah, like, it _worked_?!” The blond bolted up, catching Tony so that he didn't just topple backwards when he did, and it looked sort of silly, really, as he vaguely hugged Tony, grinning at Mary Jane. “You're pregnant?!”

“According to your doctors, yeah.” She nodded, and rested one of her knees on the bed. “I'm pregnant. Looks like you're going to be having a kid.”

Tony laughed, out right, and kissed Johnny, firmly, then reached over to curl his hands against Mary Jane's jaw, and kissed her, too, a fast press of lips, then he crowed his joy at the ceiling, hugging Johnny's head. “Fuck  _yes_ !”

“Don't swear in front of your unborn baby, Tony.” Mary Jane lectured, but she was laughing, eyes bright.

“Oi, he's a bundle of cells right now, he doesn't have _ears,_ much less the ability to hear things.” Tony rolled his eyes, and bounced slightly, almost giddily. “This is such good news.”

“We should tell everyone!” Johnny perked up.

“We should!” Tony agreed.

“Woah, woah, woah.” Mary Jane held up her hands. “No. That is a bad idea, guys. Don't tell people yet.”

“But it's good news.” Johnny frowned.

“Sure, it is, but didn't you hear all those warnings?” Mary Jane took a deep breath, and sat on the edge of the bed. “The doctors say I am going to have to have weekly check ups and everything, because they're worried about things. They don't want to get too excited until at least the first trimester is through, just to make sure that there are no complications. I mean, you _are_ doing some crazy experimental stuff, here. This is ground breaking, let's not start telling everyone, just in case.”

Tony pouted. “...but I want to tell everyone.”

“Tell them all in three months.” She snorted, and patted their thighs. “Look, I’m going to go home for a bit... _try_ and keep this to yourselves, okay?”

“Eh, we'll try.” Johnny snickered, grinning at her.

“Behave yourselves, and keep it to yourself,” she pointed at him, and shook her head, standing again. 

“Hey, I didn't even think of this before, but... how's Peter taking all of this, anyway?” Tony asked, still curled up to Johnny's chest as he watched her head towards the door. “I mean, he's your boyfriend, right, and I know he's usually pretty distracted with that web-slinging of his and all, but... I mean, he's gotta have an opinion about you carrying a baby for two other men.”

Mary Jane hesitated with her hand on the doorknob, and took a deep breath. “Peter doesn't know.”

Johnny blinked at her. “...well, he's gonna  _notice_ .”

“No, he isn't going to, not really.” She dropped her hand off of the knob, and leaned on the bedroom door, arms crossed over her chest. “The day of the surrogate interview, we broke up.”

“Ouch.” Tony blinked. “So _that_ explains why you were so pissed off when you showed up at the office.” 

“I had a very bad morning.” Mary Jane said, finally, and considered them both. “But it's over. He's dating whatserface, Gwen Stacey or the blond bimbo or whatever the fuck she's going by these days, because she is about as spineless and plastic as she was in high school. Peter is quite content to hang out with the new and ever-so-fascinating Gwen, and so he doesn't really get an option here. Don't worry, Peter's extra curricular activities won't be influencing anything with the baby, and I’m _mostly_ over the angry stage, so I’ll be fine. Promise.”

“...I've heard that somewhere before.” Johnny looked at Tony. “Do we normally get over the angry stage?”

“I dunno, we've never had a fight.” He snickered, grinning. 

“Should we have one, just to see if we get over the angry stage or not?” Johnny asked, snickering.

Mary Jane rolled her eyes. “If you do,  _I_ don't want to be here for it.”

“Oh, wait, before you leave - “ Tony perked up a little, arms still looped around Johnny's neck as he did, squirming a little closer to the blond as he did. As much as Mary Jane didn't really want to be here when they got into the making up – or the anger, either way – Tony sort of had a thing for having sex in front of people. And all right, they weren't having _sex_ , but they were naked, and they were curled up together. So that would have to do. “Just... for my charts and the data and everything... how far along are you, have they said?”

“Just over a month, they said.” She shrugged, and poked her stomach. “I look exactly the same, I feel _mostly_ the same... a little more grumpy, a little more hungry, but so far, it just doesn't seem real, you know?”

Johnny nodded. “Aren't the pregnancy tests supposed to be able to tell, like... within two weeks?”

“They are.” Mary Jane agreed, and twisted the door knob, pulling the door open. “I waited to tell you. I’ve heard all sorts stories about these pregnancies not actually taking, so... I figured it would be safer to wait a little bit. To make sure it had actually worked.”

“...that's downright devious.” Tony blinked.

“Well, I aim to please.” She grinned, and waved at them as she slipped out of the room. “Have fun _celebrating_ , boys!”

“Oh, we _will_.” Tony grinned.

Johnny snickered. “Heh, sounds like a good idea.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“Has anyone actually seen Tony or Johnny lately?” Natasha asked, as she poured herself a mug of coffee. She was still dressed in the gear she'd been wearing for her training session with Steve, and a towel was slung around her neck.

“They were with us when we took out those Doombots yesterday,” Steve said, settling at the kitchen table and leaning over to kiss his husband.

“Other than that,” she waved that off, leaning on the counter.

“They did seem determined to quit the scene as quickly as possible,” Thor agreed, frowning slightly. He was eating a bowl of ice cream, and looked slightly ridiculous, cradling the bowl as he ate, eagerly. “Perhaps they are facing some danger?”

“Or maybe they're just having a butt-ton of sex.” Clint rolled his eyes, flicking the page in his magazine. “Like they _always_ are?”

“They don't usually disappear for days at a time, though,” Natasha frowned. “They usually try to lord all the sex they're having over us and the rest of the world. What are you _reading_ , Clint?”

He blinked. “What? It's not my fault Jan leaves these things everywhere. Shut up.”

Steve leaned forward, frowning. “'Redbook'?”

“That book is decidedly not red, my friend,” Thor frowned, craning his neck to read the cover. “'Fifty things to do in bed to drive your man wild'?”

“I am reading it,” Clint snapped. “For the _pictures_.”

Loki hummed, leaning forward as he smirked slightly. “Do not let them trouble you, archer. I too find that publication a veritable wealth of ideas. Steve tends to enjoy what I learn, as well.”

Natasha groaned. “Too much information, Loki...”

“If you _must_ know, this article is about the nation's 'power couples',” Clint flicked another page. “Do you suppose Tony and Johnny know they're listed as the nation's second best 'power couple', after Brad and Angelina? No, because by now, Tony would have called to complain about his poor score...”

“You're kidding!” She laughed, stepping forward to peer over his shoulder. “'Stark and Storm are burning up the list'.... that is _terrible_ writing.”

“I know, right?” Clint snickered. “The photo's shite, too...”

“Let me see?” Steve held out a hand.

“Screw you, steal Jan's magazine yourself,” the archer snickered.

Thor leaned over, and plucked the magazine from his fingers, offering it to his brother in law with an almost devious smirk. “Here you are, brother-Steve.”

“Hey, no fair!” Clint whacked the god in the arm. “Thor's stealing. I think that brands him a supervillain.”

“I'll give it back,” Steve rolled his eyes, and considered the photo.

“Tony's head looks alarmingly small in that photo,” Loki declared, frowning at the page. 

“That's because they didn't actually use a photo of the two of them together,” Steve pointed out the details. “Considering they made it to number two on the list, you would think they'd manage to actually get a photo of them _as_ a couple.”

“Ah, yes, but no such thing exists,” Clint pointed at him. “Because they're fuck buddies, not a 'couple'.”

“Oh please,” Natasha scoffed. “If they're not a couple, then no one is. They've been monogamous for almost five years. They're having _children_ together. Oh!”

“Oh?” Thor blinked up at her.

“ _That's_ why they haven't been around in days!” Natasha grinned, broadly. “It worked. They're having children.”

“ _Oh_.” Loki agreed, whistling lowly. “Yet they have not deemed it important enough to tell the rest of us?”

“Are you kidding?” Clint rolled his eyes. “They're going to be having celebration sex for at least another week. They won't be up to actual conversation and announcements until after they've recovered from deHYDRAtion. You know, cause of the sheer fucking amount of sex they're having.”

“Jealousy does not suit you, Clint,” Loki purred.

“I am not fighting you on this. You're SHIELD whipped anyway, what do you know of jealousy?”

“Oi.” Steve frowned.

“Calm down, Cap, not everything has to be met by running into battle,” Clint rolled his eyes. “So Tony and Johnny are pregnant. Good on them. We should throw them a baby shower.”

Thor perked up. “An excellent idea!”

“Thor, no.” Natasha rolled her eyes. “Even if they _have_ successfully managed to get Mary Jane pregnant, she's _barely_ pregnant. It might be a little early for baby showers.”

That subdued the room for a moment, then Steve suggested, “'A Hooray You're Pregnant' party?”

Clint pointed at him. “Yes.”

“And as neither of them are actually pregnant... perhaps we should bring more of that dwarven ale, brother? Steve is so _very_ sweet when he's drunk....”

“Your husband is sickeningly sweet stone sober,” Clint rolled his eyes.

“He _has_ got a point.” Natasha agreed.

Steve pouted. “I'm just being me.”

“Yeah, yeah, being you, being sickeningly sweet.” She rolled her eyes. “Thor! You're good at planning parties... get this shindig on the way, yeah?”

“I would consider it my honour,” he thumped his fist on his chest.

  
  


\---

  
  


“The guys are acting really weird,” Johnny informed Tony, as he returned to the park bench where the eccentric billionaire was sitting.

“The guys?” Tony repeated, taking the blue paper cup from him, curling it in his cool fingers, to warm them.

“You know, the guys. The Avengers.” Johnny flopped beside him, pushing his aviators up onto his head. “You don't think they have an issue with the whole children thing, do you?”

“What? No way. Not a chance.” Tony frowned, sipping at his coffee. “Highly unlikely.”

“...do you think we'd be lousy dads?”

“We are going to be excellent fathers, bite your tongue.” Tony pointed at him, peering at him for a moment over the top of his glasses. “And if we are terrible fathers, we can hire good nannies, or something. No. We're going to be great fathers. I will _not_ be Howard.”

Johnny squeezed the other's leg. “I know, Tony.”

“I won't.” He said, again, not quite as vehemently this time. “I dunno, maybe Steve and Loki are having sex everywhere again, and we haven't noticed. Or maybe it's Doom. He's been pretty obnoxious lately. It's not us. I mean, we've sort of been... _away_ most of the time. We can't be pissing them off. Ah. How _weird_ are they being, anyway?”

“Every time I walk into a room, Jan starts giggling.”

“Well, that's Jan for you.” He waved that off. “Or you have something on your face. Or it's the hickies. Could be the hickies.” Tony tapped a bruise that was visible over the top of Johnny's grey scarf. “She seems the type to be terribly amused by hickies.”

“Mmhmm.” Johnny nodded. “Last week, Logan clapped me on the shoulder and told me that I was a lucky man.”

“You _are_ a lucky man.” Tony grinned. “You have _me_ to sleep with on a regular basis. Sounds pretty damn lucky to me.”

“Yesterday, Pepper kissed me. On the forehead. Without saying anything.”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again. “....okay, that's weird.”

“You see?” Johnny arched a brow, and sipped at his coffee, quietly, staring out over the park. “Maybe we should stop avoiding them for awhile.”

“If we stop avoiding them, we are going to spill, remember?”

“...right.” He sighed.

“I'm always right, babe.” He said, loftily, brushing his fingers lightly down Johnny's jaw for a moment, then dropped his hand into his lap as Mary Jane walked towards them, shoulders hunched against the chill. “Hey, MJ. How's it hanging?”

“Hormonal and craving.” She grumped, and nudged them both out of the way with her hips, apparently bound and determined to sit between them. Taking a deep breath, she looked back and forth between their coffees, then sighed. “So it's an agenda of torture, is it?”

“Huh?” Tony blinked at her. “Shit, the caffeine, you can't have coffee, can you?”

“No,” she said, sighing. “I can't.”

“Sorry,” Johnny set his cup aside. “We'll hide them.”

“Oh, don't suffer on my account,” Mary Jane rolled her eyes. “Look, it's, what... two and a half months, now? I don't even _look_ pregnant yet. I _feel_ pregnant, but... I don't even look it. People just think I’m weird or really healthy, or something. And I can't fit any of my bras anymore.”

“... _really_?” Johnny grinned, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“...and my desire for sex has dropped through the toilet,” she said, dryly, looking at him, steadily. “So I am _not_ in the mood. They _ache_ , Johnny.”

He pursed his lips, then glanced at Tony. “You aren't going to start aching, are you?”

“Fuck no.” He scoffed. “This is why we got a surrogate, remember? So that we wouldn't have to deal with sore breasts and stretch marks and being pregnant. No offense, Mary Jane, darling, of course, but...”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She snorted, and leaned back in her seat, folding her hands over her stomach, closing her eyes.

“How _are_ you holding up?” Johnny asked, quietly, shifting on the bench so that he could face her, properly, one of his legs sort of tucked up under himself. His arm rested on the back of the bench as he considered the redhead, who opened a single eye, considering him for a long moment. “I mean, really. How are you doing?”

“I'm doing surprisingly all right.” She said, quietly. “I mean, yeah, I’m a big ol' bucket of confusing hormones and moodiness, but I’m all right.”

“Do you need anything?” Tony asked, quickly, copying Johnny's pose as he faced her, as well. “Like... you need a trip to somewhere warm, or do you need a chauffeur, or a new wardrobe, or do you want to come stay in the mansion for awhile, or...?”

“God, I don't want to stay in your mansion,” Mary Jane groaned. “Are you aware of how _disfunctional_ you all are, there? I have a perfectly nice apartment, thank you very much.”

“Okay, good point, but... you need anything?” Tony asked.

“Now you sound like I’m a kept woman you're trying to pay off with trinkets and treats,” Mary Jane rolled her eyes. “I know you're paying me for what I’m doing and everything, but still. That makes it sort of sound even worse. Look, Tony, I get what you're going for, here, but I’m fine. Really. I just want to make sure you're up to date on everything.”

“Right.” He took a deep breath, and sighed heavily. “...sorry. I’m sort of nervous.”

Johnny grinned, shaking his head. “Don't listen to a word he says, sweetheart, he's not sort of nervous, he's a complete emotional wreck. He's been beside himself for the last... well. Longer than two months. Since the day before his birthday. Actually, come to think of it, he's been like this longer than that. What  _did_ prompt this, Tony?”

“I've wondered that, myself.” Mary Jane shifted slightly, considering Tony. “What made you decide you just had to have kids?”

“What, you don't think I’ve got a biological clock ticking away in here?” Tony said, pressing his fingers to his chest, almost mockingly. 

“And here I thought there was an arc reactor ticking away in there,” Johnny smirked.

Tony huffed, and shook his head, slightly, considering them both. “Look... some things in my life have made me reevaluate things. There was the whole thing in Afghanistan, there was my heart... there's Iron Man, reminding me that it's about more than  _me_ , now. Then Maggie could have been mine, and that got me thinking, and... look. A few years ago, I finally realized that my father... my father actually loved me. So I looked back on my childhood, and thought,  _shit, that was my life, hating my father for forty something years_ . I never wanted to have kids, because I never wanted to be  _him_ .”

“You wouldn't be,” Johnny said, fiercely.

Mary Jane twisted slightly, looking over her shoulder at Johnny, considering him seriously.

“You _won't_ be.” He said, again, seriously. “I believe in you, Tony.”

“What he said,” Mary Jane murmured, smiling.

Tony smiled faintly, shaking his head, and leaned back into the bench for a long few moments, eyes closed. “So I guess that's it. Realizing my father actually did love me made me realize that I wanted to have children. I guess... to have the family I didn't have before.” 

“...that sounds seriously touchy feely, Tony.”

“Shut up, firefly,” Tony smirked at him, and slung his arm across the back of the bench so that he could tug on Johnny's scarf. “Or I won't fuck you over the drafting table again.”

“Too much _information_ ,” Mary Jane groaned, heavily.

“Oh come on, sweetheart, you had to have known how incredibly _open_ we were about this before you signed up to being our surrogate.” Tony snickered. “Just be glad we didn't insist on this happening a more natural way.”

“If it had happened a more _natural_ way, this kid wouldn't be the both of yours.” Mary Jane snickered. “Which makes me wonder why in the world you wanted a kid with Johnny anyway. See, here's the thing. I’ve been doing my research. Even though the whole world thinks that you two are an adorable 'power couple' or whatever, you both declare that you're _not_ in a relationship. Right?”

“Right.” Johnny nodded. 

“So here's my thing. I get why you want kids, Tony... what I _don't_ get is why you want kids with a man you claim is _not_ your boyfriend.”

“Ugh. A boyfriend is such a _dull_ thing to have.” Tony scoffed.

“Exactly.” Johnny waved that off.

“You know how incredibly stupid you two sound?” Mary Jane snorted, shaking his head. “You guys are _monogamous_ , right?”

“We are not!” Johnny yelped. 

“Oh yeah?” She challenged, grinning. “Cause you sound really stupid right now. Seriously, you've been together for almost five years.”

“We have not been _together_.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“You _live_ together.” Mary Jane rolled her eyes. “You go on dates with other people, and end up back with each other by the end of the night. There are women and men out there who have created support groups _mourning_ the fact that you two are off the market, because you are seriously two of the biggest playboys the world has known. Like, seriously, you two have fucked more people together than the rest of this city combined. And, okay, I’m not trying to slut-shame here, I’m just trying to point out that you are like a sickeningly sweet couple, here. And now you're having _children_!”

“...okay, I can see _why_ you think we're a couple...” Tony pursed his lips, frowning slightly. “But we're not.”

“So you've said, many times.” She stood, finally. “I ought to get home, been nice seeing you two.”

“You should come by the mansion, sometime.” Johnny looked up at her. 

“I will,” she agreed, then abruptly bent to kiss each of their foreheads, quietly. “Thank you for the food for thought, boys. Maybe you've got some to think over, too.”

“Yeah, seriously, I think we have.” Tony pointed at Johnny. “I think we need to get laid tonight. By someone _other_ than each other.”

“Sounds like fun to me,” Johnny grinned.

“Oh for god's sake...” Mary Jane groaned, and threw up her hands. “ _Men_!”


	2. Part Two

Johnny slipped into the Avenger's mansion at about midnight, moving quietly through the dark halls, and deliberately avoiding the areas where people were normally gathered. He could hear the television in the living room, and laughter from some of the others as they watched some movie or another, and crept down the hall to Tony's bedroom, slipping into the room.

Only he stopped dead, surprised, when he realized that there was a dull blue glow in the otherwise nearly complete darkness, and called, quietly, “Tony?”

The blue glow shifted and moved, then the bedside lamp flicked on, and Tony blinked at him. He was sitting on the bed, cross-legged at the moment, dressed in a pair of ratty old blue striped pyjama pants that had oil stains on them from the last time he'd gotten distracted from sleep by working on one of the cars, and was shirtless. “...what are you doing here?” Tony blinked at him.

“What am _I_ doing here, what are _you_ doing here?” Johnny tugged off his jacket.

There was silence for a long moment, then Tony sighed, and scratched the skin where the arc reactor met chest. “...you struck out too, huh?”

“Yeah.” He sighed, tossing his jacket onto the arm chair in the corner, then toed off his shoes, and headed over to the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “...was Mary Jane right? Have we seriously become a monogamous _couple_?”

“God, no.” He shuddered. “If we were a couple, we would be boring.”

“....Tony, it's midnight, and you're in your pyjamas, and I’ve just left a bar at least three hours before closing time. We may have, in fact, become boring.”

Tony blinked at him. “...shit.”

“Yeah. _And_ we're having children. Good god, we've become old men,” Johnny groaned, heavily, and slumped down to sink into the pillows. “Are we going to have to be as disgustingly adorable and sweet and everything like Loki and Steve are?”

“If I start acting as sappy sweet as Steve, _stab me.”_ Tony groaned, heavily, and flopped beside him. 

“Yeah, ditto.” Johnny muttered.

They lay side by side in silence for a long few minutes, then Tony abruptly sat up, and pointed at Johnny. “No.  _No_ , I will  _not_ submit to this incredibly depressingly boringness. Come on.”

“Come on where?” The blond blinked.

“To the most ridiculously public place we can find. We're going to scandalize some people.” Tony held out his hand, calmly. “Come on, firefly, we're going to get dressed up and, I dunno, drive the Lambo to somewhere where we might get arrested for having sex in the front seat. _That_ ought to shake things up. Maybe we can even find ourselves a model or two. Monogamous we might be, but that doesn't mean we can't have kinky as shit sex.”

“I knew there was a reason I kept coming back to you,” he grinned. “And it wasn't just your addictive cock. You're _creative_.”

“You know it, baby.” Tony beamed.

  
  


\---

  
  


“Woah! There's a _bump_!” 

Mary Jane laughed, her t-shirt rucked up over her stomach, bunched up under her breasts. Her belly was still pretty flat, really, but she did have a slight rounding now – she was finally starting to show. Well, at three and a half months, that made some sense. Either way, she was grinning as Tony shifted forward to lightly touch the little, lightly freckled bump, and said, “Yep, looks like we're out of the danger zone, too. Doctors say I’m into the second trimester, now, so things are good, it looks like.” 

“Awesome,” Johnny grinned, and hesitated. “Can I touch?”

“Tony didn't ask,” she snorted. “Come on, just touch.”

Johnny grinned, and shifted forward, laying his palms flat against the slight swell of her belly, grinning. Leaning closer to her, he whispered to her stomach, “Hey, little guy. This is your daddy Johnny, and that's your daddy Tony. This is Mary Jane. She's gonna carry you around until you're here to be raised by me and your other daddy, okay?”

Tony abruptly curled his arm around Johnny's shoulders, and tugged him right against his side, pressing a firm kiss to his temple. 

Mary Jane smiled softly as she watched them. She had noticed the moment that  _this is really real_ had settled in the blond's eyes, and the sheer elation and joy in Tony's as he realized how very much his lover cared about this whole thing. It was a little beautiful vignette at that very moment, and it reminded her all over again why exactly she had chosen to be their surrogate – and it wasn't just for the money. Pushing her shirt back down over her stomach, she straightened it out slightly, and grinned at them both. “So... only six more months or so, guys. In half a year, you two are gonna be daddies.”

Johnny's eyes widened. “Oh god. There is so much  _work_ to do.”

Tony barked with laughter, and nudged his shoulder. “What, you think I haven't already started on that? I’ve been making lists of stuff we need. And hell, if we rope Pepper into throwing us a baby shower or something, there is not an awesome person in the world that isn't going to want to send us presents. I mean, the Stark-Storm baby? This is gonna be the most awesome baby ever.  _Ever_ . So this baby is gonna have the most awesome nursery in the – names. Oh shit, we haven't even talked about names yet.”

The blond's eyes widened in surprise. “Oh god. Names.”

“Oh god, this is a conversation that is gonna take years,” Mary Jane snorted, and picked up her jacket off of the drafting table, tugging it on. They'd decided to meet in Tony's lab, because to an extent, it was one of the most private places in the mansion. If nothing else, JARVIS typically kept people out. Usually. “You guys gonna walk me out?”

“Yeah, that seems like a good idea,” Tony stood, and offered Johnny his hand. Grinning, the blond took his hand, and let him pull him up, then Tony linked his arm with Mary Jane's, and offered, “Let's walk out of this big ol' scary mansion, MJ.”

“You are such an asshole,” she snorted, but let him lead her out of the lab.

They'd gotten about halfway down the hallway, and were just entering the living room when everything went sort of topsy turvy. There was a large banner stretched across the end of the living room, hanging slightly over the window, and in bright colours, someone had painted “ _HOORAY YOU'RE PREGNANT!”_ and there were balloons hanging in the corners and a few spread over the floor. Somehow, they'd managed to get all of the Avengers – and Dummy, because Dummy sort of liked to get himself involved in all of these situations, whether he was an Avenger or not – in the living room. At that moment that Tony, Johnny and Mary Jane walked into the room, they all threw up their arms, pitching handfuls of paper confetti at them, and shouted, “ _Surprise_ !”

“Holy _shit_.” Johnny gasped.

“Well!” Tony laughed. “Isn't this an unexpected pleasure!”

“...I thought you said you hadn't told them yet.” Mary Jane blinked, picking brightly coloured bits of paper out of her red hair. “...hey everybody.”

Thor stepped forward, grinning, and swept his arms around the three of them, hugging them tightly. “My friends! This is a festival to celebrate your joyous coming arrival! Joyous days!”

“Woah, Thor... gonna put us down now?” Johnny squeaked.

Thor laughed, releasing them as he ruffled Tony's hair, and grinned at the three of them, delighted. “Come! Celebrate! We have food and drink!”

“I can't have drink,” Mary Jane snorted, patting the god's arm. 

“For you, we have other drinks,” Pepper interrupted, side stepping Thor as she smiled at the little trio of them, curling her hand on Mary Jane's shoulder. “Hey, Mary Jane. It's good to see you again.”

“Hey, Pepper.” She nodded, smiling faintly. She looked a little out of her depth. “Nice little, ah... shindig you got going here.”

“Yeah,” she laughed softly, and offered, “How about we go sit down, give you a few minutes, okay?”

“That sounds awesome,” Mary Jane smiled, flushed. 

“You assholes, decided you just weren't gonna _tell_ us?!” Clint laughed, stepping up between the two men, throwing his arms over both of Tony and Johnny's shoulders, squeezing them against his sides. “We had to actually figure this out on our own. What, you were gonna have a stupid press conference, and that was how you were _going_ to tell us? I mean, c'mon, look at MJ, she's starting to _show_ , and you still ain't told us? Dickheads.”

Johnny snorted, and patted Clint's shoulder before he ducked out from under his arm. “We were being  _prudent_ .”

“You don't even know what that word means,” Clint snickered.

“Technically, true.” He pointed at him.

Tony snorted, and dipped out under from Clint's arm as well, looping his arm through Johnny's. It was an odd gesture, from Tony, as though he was trying to hold onto him. “So! I hear there are drinks in celebration! Can we get a few of those?”

Jan bounced up to them, grinning as she offered them both a glass. “So... Loki says this is your favourite drink. I dunno, I think it would burn out your nose hair, but... he says you like it.”

Johnny sipped at his glass, then whistled. “ _Hoo_ !”

“Ha! Nifleheim ale!” Tony cheered, lifting his glass as he laughed, then knocked back a swig of it, pleased. “Steve! You're drinking one of these too, right?”

Steve silently lifted his glass in salute. 

“Good man.” He grinned, and abruptly pressed another firm kiss to Johnny's temple. “So how _did_ you all figure it out, anyway?”

“Because you were too quiet.” Natasha smirked, stepping up and holding her glass up. Tony obligingly clinked his glass against hers. “You were avoiding us. Which lead us either to thinking that you had finally killed each other, or the pregnancy finally took, and you were avoiding us to try and not accidentally spill the beans. Or you were celebrating for days at a time.”

“There might have been a little of column a, and a little of column b,” Johnny grinned. “But we are really that obvious?”

“You're really that obvious.” Natasha smirked, and sipped at her glass. 

“Yeah, that's true.” Clint agreed. “You're not good at hiding things.”

“Hey, Tony, Johnny.” Jane stepped up to them, smiling as she curled a little against Thor's side, offering them her hand. Tony shook her hand, first, then Johnny, and she smiled at them both. “I just wanted to offer my congratulations. I’m very glad you've got good news.”

“Thanks,” Tony grinned at her. “So when are you going to be bringing your own little bundles of joy into the mix?”

Jane glanced up at Thor, flushed. The god's eyes lit up when Tony suggested that, and she just patted his chest, lightly. “How about we talk about that later? Much later. When we've been together a touch longer, hm? We haven't had quite the  _length_ of relationship that you two have had.”

“You two have known each other longer than we have.” Johnny snorted.

“I'd like to point out that Thor spent a substantial amount of that time in Asgard,” Jane smirked, but she was still contentedly curled up to Thor's side. “We'll talk about it, how's that?”

“Better than we had before!” Tony grinned, and knocked back about half of his ale. “I'll be right back, firefly.”

“Have fun,” he grinned, lifting his jaw so that he could watch Tony walk away over Natasha's shoulder. 

The Russian woman arched a brow. “See something you like, Johnny?”

“Huh?” He looked up, and grinned, brightly. “Shit, I love watching that man walk away. Course I do. So. This is a party, right? Let's party.”

“Steve, Loki!” Tony laughed as he stepped up to the married pair, holding out his arms, expansively. “My bestest friends in the whole of the Avengers... how are you doing, men?”

“We're doing well,” Loki said, with a smirk. “You seem to be in high spirits.”

“I have a _baby_ on the way!” Tony grinned, and saluted them with his glass, knocking back another swallow of his ale. “Of course I’m in a good mood! Come on, you two were practically giddy when you were expecting Joseph.”

“Of course we were,” Steve smiled softly. “A baby is a joyous thing. It's the American dream, isn't it? A house, a white picket fence, a beautiful, _gorgeous_ bloke by your side...” He kissed Loki's forehead. “A few kids. And a dog. We should really work on getting a dog, Loki.”

Loki laughed softly, and kissed Steve. “We could get a tiger.”

“...tigers are not dogs.”

“But they're striped,” Loki grinned, curled close into Steve's side. “And I like striped animals. Tigers are wonderful animals, Steve.”

“...but I want a _dog_.”

“Tiger?” Loki suggested again, grinning.

“How about no animals, they're terrible on the carpets,” Tony grinned at them, almost mischievously. “Wait until you get your own little house.”

“You wish us to leave?” Loki asked, lightly.

“Hell no.” The billionaire lifted his hands, shaking his head. “No, I don't want you to leave. I told you, you're my best friends. Of the Avengers. I mean, Rhodey is _technically_ my best friend. But of the Avengers, you're my best friends. I want you to stay here. I like having the kids running around. Maggie is a _wonderful_ little girl. She is _very_ good at rocket football, you know that? I like having them around. I like having you around. I just don't like tigers or dogs around. They're terrible on the furniture.”

Steve laughed, and squeezed Tony's shoulder. “So... when are you going to get married?”

Tony choked on his ale.

Loki laughed, brightly, eagerly. “That was almost better than I expected!”

The captain sighed, heavily, shaking his head. “I mean it, Tony. I know that things have changed, in this day and age, that your world is different than mine was, but in my time, people didn't really have children before they got married. And if they got unexpectedly pregnant, they  _got_ married. So, when are you getting married?”

“Ah... we're not.” Tony said, finally, sipping at his ale again, looking like he was intent on getting drunk, now. “We're not going to get married.”

“Why not?” Steve's brows furrowed, looking displeased.

“Because marriage is a farce these days.” He halted, glass halfway to his mouth, and said, quickly. “Not yours, obviously. Other marriages. The _institution_ of marriage. I mean, look at it, the divorce rate is well over half now... and besides, I don't do relationships.”

“So you've said before.” Loki frowned. “Which is sort of ridiculous, because you've been in one for five years.”

“No, I have not.” Tony said, firmly, and knocked back the last of his ale. “Now... let's get about... sixteen more rounds of these, and celebrate that I’m getting a _baby_ , because I worked _damn_ hard to get one. So Johnny and me are gonna be dads, and we need a party!”

  
  


\---

  
  


Johnny didn't actually remember going to bed. 

He remembered the party, he remembered Jan dancing on the coffee table, he remembered Thor and Dummy arm wrestling –  _that_ was something for the record books, he was pretty sure – over the last goat cheese turnover, he remembered Loki pole-dancing, switching between female and male as he went, and he remembered Clint refilling his glass every time it got even close to empty. He was pretty sure he remembered Mary Jane leaving at some point through the party, citing fatigue, and he was pretty sure he remembered karaoke. Oh  _god_ , he remembered karaoke. Oh  _fuck_ , he sang  _Unchained Melody_ . Badly. And he was pretty sure he remembered making out with Tony and falling off of the couch at some point. 

He was never going to live this down.

Ever.

Johnny shifted slightly under the covers, and wondered if it was worth fighting through the ale headache to actually get up, or whether he should just go back to sleep and pretend that the whole world didn't exist. 

“...do you feel like death, too?”

He slowly lifted his head, and blinked sort of blearily at the dull blue glow that informed him that the reason his pillow was warm was because it was actually Tony's chest. “...yes.”

A heavy hand settled on the back of Johnny's head, after a moment, and he groaned when Tony began quietly running his callused fingers over his closely cropped hair. Tony kept rubbing and working little circles across his scalp, and Johnny melted into the touch, relieved by the warmth and the comfort. It made his hangover headache feel much better, already. Shifting slightly, he curled his fingers on the arc reactor, quietly, and murmured, “Well... that helps.”

“Good,” Tony murmured. “...did we really just have a huge party for how awesome it is that we're having kids?”

Johnny snorted, then groaned when he realized how much that hurt. “Yeah, we really did.”

“We are _awesome_.” Tony declared.

He smiled softly, his head moving up and down every time that Tony breathed, chest rising and falling under him. Johnny was warm, and comfortable despite the hangover. “That was a good night. What little I remember of it.”

“...did you sing that you would always love me?” Tony said, abruptly.

He moaned. “...no?”

“I'm pretty sure I remember _Unchained Melody_.”

“I was _really_ drunk.” Johnny groaned, and moaned a little when Tony laughed softly, his chest shifting with the laughter. “Karaoke is the worst invention in all of human kind. Whoever decided that we needed a karaoke machine in the Avengers mansion was an evil son of a bitch.”

“That was me, firefly.” Tony laughed.

“...my point stands.” He pouted, fingertips tracing around the edges of the arc reactor. 

The other man laughed, again, and kept stroking little circles in Johnny's short hair, rubbing his scalp. “That Nifleheim ale is powerful shit, isnt it?” 

“Yeah, it really is.” Johnny agreed, eyes half lidded as he considered the blue reflection through his fingers, the way that it almost made his skin seem to glow. “But it's such an enjoyable thing, while we're drinking it. It's a nice thing. It's just apparently extremely evil.”

Tony chuckled. “It is that.”

They lay there for a long few moments, in silence, then the door abruptly opened, and Johnny lifted his head, startled. “Who is it?”

Tony frowned, confused, and slowly sat up. “I don't see –  _oh_ !”

“Wake up!” Maggie called, delighted, as she clambered up onto the bed, eyes bright as she stood up on the mattress, and bounced towards them, happily. She flopped on top of them, laughing eagerly as she rolled over and over, calling, “I'm a blanket! Blanket! I’m gonna roll all over you!”

Johnny laughed, and caught her, rolling onto his back beside Tony so that he could plunk her down between them. Maggie grinned, and wriggled. “Morning, miss Maggie.”

“Isn't morning no more, it's afternoon.” She said, cheerfully, wriggling. “We had lunch. Momma Steve made grilled cheese and 'mato soup. He made some for you too, but you didn't wake up, cause daddy Loki said you stayed up too late. They said I wasn't 'lowed to wake you up til _after_ lunch. Didja sleep well?”

“We did,” Tony grinned at her, tugging on one of her pigtails, which really were more like puffballs than pigtails, the curls were so tight. “How come you're not at school, miss Maggie?”

“Cause it's _Saturday_ , dumb dumb.” She giggled, slapping his stomach, and just laughed when he groaned. “Come on, wake up. Wake up! We could play foot ball!”

“You think your daddies wouldn't mind if we played some foot ball?” Johnny grinned.

“ _Football_!” She said, again, eagerly. “Come on, uncle Johnny, you can fly me! Make rings of fire for me to fly through! Come on, come _on_ , it's _fun_!”

“All right, all right.” Tony nodded at her. “Go get your suit on, miss Maggie. We'll be out in a minute, all right?”

“All right!” She crowed, and darted off of the bed. 

“Good girl.” Johnny grinned.

Maggie waved at them, and called, “ _Hurry_ ! I wanna play football!”

Tony laughed, and waved her off. When she closed the door behind him, he quickly lifted the blankets that had been pooled around their waists, and groaned in relief. “Thank god. We  _were_ wearing pants.”

Johnny thumped back in the blankets. “...oh thank god.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Rocket football tended to draw attention. 

For good reason, really, because even though the Avengers ran around New York causing havoc and trying to beat down HYDRA, or Doom, or whoever else that was attacking the city that particular day, rocket football sort of drew a lot of attention. After all, it was Iron Man flying over the city with the Human Torch – naturally aflame – and Maggie in her armour, which a lot of the magazines had dubbed “Iron Baby”. She wasn't a baby anymore, she was almost five, and this was actually her third suit, because Tony kept adjusting them to make them bigger and better and more technologically advanced, but the name had stuck. 

Tony had worked out a headset for Johnny, one that had taken a  _lot_ of work, to make it protected enough that Johnny could get up to nearly supernova heats and still not destroy the thing. Otherwise, how was he going to communicate with them both? Shouting wasn't really hearable through the helmet.

It was on that headset that Johnny called, “Hey, miss Maggie... you want some rings?”

“Yes!” The little girl called, eagerly, excited. Though her armour was designed like Tony's, it was white and green instead of red and gold, because it had been Tony's attempts to combine her father's colours on the armour. The red and green, though, that had looked a little too Christmas-y, so green and white it was. “Make me rings!”

Johnny grinned, and gave her a thumbs up before he headed forward in the sky, trailing flame behind him as he did, making a series of concentric circles in a row. 

Maggie laughed, and her boot jets flared as she flew forward, darting through each of the circles, weaving through them like a slalom course, eagerly. She laughed as she did, her giggles echoing in Tony's helmet and Johnny's headset as she did, before she finally held out her arms, and called, “Taa daa!”

“Good job, miss Maggie!” Tony laughed, grinning at her, not that she could see through the helmet, naturally.

“Come on, football!” She called, eagerly.

They hadn't managed to find a way to make footballs that were fireproof, but Tony had managed to make a metal ball that was, using most of the same materials he used to make Johnny's headset. It was that ball that Iron Man hefted, now, and bounced slightly in his hands before tossing it. 

It was heavy – hollow, yes, but a lot heavier than an actual football. Still, Maggie flared her jets and caught the ball, hugging it to her chest as she laughed, eagerly. “Uncle Johnny!” She called, then tossed it in his direction.

Johnny laughed, trailing flames behind him as he flew back to catch it. No was really sure if Maggie was so very strong at this because of the suit, or because her father was Loki, but it was probably because of the suit, really. After all, no other four year old on the planet had an Iron Baby suit. Ever. He caught the ball, and grinned before tossing it back at her.

“Keep away!” Maggie called, and Johnny laughed before looping around behind Tony. “Catch!”

“Woah, we're keeping it away from _me_?” Tony protested.

Johnny cackled, and caught the ball, grinning.

They played for hours, happy and joyful and laughing as they tossed the ball back and forth, and of course Tony eventually caught it, and then Johnny was the monkey in the middle, and then they started practicing “skeet shooting”, when Johnny would toss flameballs out into the air and Maggie would use her arc cannons to try and blast them out of the sky. It was a wonderful afternoon.

Landing in the Avengers hanger, Johnny flamed off, then laughed when Iron Man abruptly wrapped his arms around him, and lifted him right off of the floor. “Tony!”

The mask flicked back, and Tony kissed his ear, laughing, before setting him back down on the floor. 

Maggie laughed, and set her feet into the foot straps that were designed for her suit, and the machinery whirred as it worked at taking off her armour. “You are sappy sugary like Momma Steve and daddy Loki.”

“We're good at that,” Tony grinned, clicking his own boots into place, the same machines working to remove his armour.

Johnny grinned as he stood in front of the pair, hands on his hips as he beamed at them. “See, this looks terribly complicated. You two have to wait for machines to help you, and I’m just...  _me_ . Don'tcha wish you were just super powered like me?”

“Yes!” Maggie laughed, the moment her armour was off, and bolted forward to throw her arms around his stomach, hugging him. “I do!”

“I don't,” Tony snorted, finally stepping out of the armour. “Because I’m perfect the way I am.”

“So you are.” Johnny snickered, grinning at him, patting Maggie's hair.

“Tony? Johnny?” 

The two men and the little girl turned at the sound of Pepper's voice in the doorway, and the woman let out a soft sigh of relief when she realized that they were there, and took a deep breath. 

“What's wrong?” Tony frowned. 

Pepper took a deep breath, expression sober. It was a big change from the broad, happy smile that she had the night before. “Mary Jane's in the hospital.”

The grins disappeared off of Tony and Johnny's faces.

“Is she okay?” Maggie said, eyes wide.

“Go find your dads, okay, Maggie?” Pepper said, softly, and smiled softly at the little girl when she nodded, and darted past her up the hallway, to get back into the mansion. 

“Pepper?” Tony asked, stepping closer to her.

“She's not okay,” Pepper said, quietly, swallowing. “She's... very not okay.”

“What happened?” Johnny asked, alarmed. 

“I just really think you should get to the hospital.” Pepper said, firmly. “Now. Happy is waiting with the car.”

“Pepper...” Tony stepped forward.

“ _Go_.” She said, tightly.

Johnny shook himself, and snagged Tony's hand, all but dragging him out of the room, starting to run as they did, until their feet were slapping against the tiled floor as they ran. They burst out of the mansion, Johnny still in his Fantastic Four uniform – he wore that even when he fought with the Avengers, and it was one of the few fire proof things he owned – and Tony was dressed only in jeans and a rumpled t-shirt, but they didn't care, they practically barreled into the car. 

Happy closed the door behind them, not looking terribly happy, and darted around the car to climb into the front.

“You don't think that - “ Johnny said, hesitantly.

“God, she's gotta be all right,” Tony said, voice cracking slightly. “What do you think happened? A car wreck, or...?”

“Fuck, I don't know.” He swallowed, tightly. “I mean, she's on some villain's radars, maybe they attacked her, thinking that it was Peter's baby, or something...”

Tony groaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, taking a deep shuddering breath. “Fuck. I don't know. This isn't going to help, thinking about it, trying to work this out, this isn't going to work this all out, this isn't going to help... we have to be strong for MJ and the kid, we have to be strong for them, get her the best doctors we can, whatever is going on...”

“And hunt down whatever villain hurt her.” Johnny growled, angrily. 

“ _Yes_.” Tony agreed, fiercely.

After what felt like a very long time, they had finally arrived at the hospital, and when they had rushed into reception, trying to find out what was going on, the nurse behind the counter paled slightly when she saw them. “Mr. Stark, Mr. Storm, ah... you're expected in the ICU. The doctors are waiting for you, they'll tell you where to go. Just... to the left.”

“ICU?” Johnny repeated, eyes wide. “What is she - ?”

“Come on,” Tony grabbed his wrist, squeezing tightly as he hauled him down the hallway, not wanting to talk, just wanting to _know_ , and though one of the orderlies called after them that there was no running allowed in the hospital, they ran down the hallway, and Tony burst through the swinging doors to the ICU unit, the doors slamming into the walls. 

A small group of doctors looked up sharply – several of them ones that worked for Stark Tech and had been involved in the actual pregnancy occurring – and one that they recognized stepped forward, quietly, nodding. “Mr. Stark, Mr. Storm.”

“What's going on?” Tony asked, anxiously. “What happened to Mary Jane?”

“She's going to be all right, Mary Jane is fine.” The doctor said, quickly, then drew a deep breath, and licked his lips, quietly. “Can we sit?”

“I don't want to sit,” Johnny said, firmly.

“What is going _on_?” Tony said again, fiercely. 

The doctor hesitated, and stepped closer to them, lowering his voice. “I'm sorry, I don't want to be the one that tells you this, but... something has happened. Mary Jane lost the baby.”

Tony let out a sound that didn't sound entirely human. It was a low, guttural sound, from deep in the chest, ripped out of him.

“Oh god,” Johnny whispered, and slumped to his knees, eyes wide, face pale.

The doctor was talking, trying to explain that it was nothing that they'd done, that no one had done anything wrong, that they had done testing and that the pregnancy had terminated because of the fetus not forming correctly, but his voice was just washing over them, and neither heard a word he said. He kept talking, trying to explain, but Tony just pressed his hand over his mouth, and trembled, dark eyes wide and almost hollow as he stared at nothing, and Johnny stared at the tiled floor, numb. 

They had heard everything that was important. 

_Mary Jane lost the baby_ .

  
  


\---

  
  


“I'm so sorry,” Mary Jane said, voice trembling as she squeezed Tony's hand. She was pale and her eyes were red-rimmed, and lying there in a hospital bed, she looked very small and frail. 

“It's not your _fault_.” Johnny said, fiercely, leaning on the edge of her bed. “No, don't look at me like that, MJ, it is _not_ your fault that this happened. The doctor said it happens sometimes, that there was a problem with their process, not with you. You did everything right, MJ. It's not your fault.”

She nodded, quickly, but she didn't look like she really believed him. 

“It's not your fault,” Tony echoed Johnny, bending over the bed to press his lips to her forehead. “It's not your fault.”

“But the baby...” she whispered, voice cracking, tears starting to slip down her cheeks again as she pressed her eyes and lips tightly shut.

“ _Not your fault_ ,” Tony said again, his own eyes tightly shut.

“The doctor said that – that after a little while... they can try again,” she said, quietly, wiping quickly at her face. “Once I’ve recovered, they think they know what went wrong...”

“Yeah,” Tony murmured, slumping back into one of the two chairs that had been set up beside the bed, pale as he sank low in the chair. “Yeah, that's good, MJ, that's really good. It really is.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said again, biting her lip. 

“Stop apologizing,” Johnny told her, gently, and instead of sitting in the other chair, he perched on the arm of Tony's chair, curling his arms around the other man's shoulders and held him close to his chest, his fingers tangled in Tony's messy hair as he just tried to hold him and try to give him strength. “It isn't your fault, and it didn't happen because you wanted it to. The doctor – the doctor says this kind of thing can _happen_. He said it's not unheard of... we're – we're doing something groundbreaking here. So we're trying new things, and bad things can happen when you – when you - “ 

He stopped talking, just pressed his hand over his own mouth. 

“We'll get through this,” Tony whispered, curling his arms around Johnny's waist, pressing his face into his stomach as he just held onto him, silently. 

“It'll work,” Mary Jane said, voice rasping and cracking as she did. “I won't give up on this, until you two are holding your baby. I swear, you are going to be fathers. I promise. I _promise_ that you _will_ be fathers. I promise.”

Johnny nodded, quickly. “We will.”

  
  


\---

  
  


The men sat in silence on the end of Tony's bed, their poses almost mirroring each other as they sat side by side, elbows on their knees as they sat hunched, staring off at the end of the room, silently. The air in the room felt heavy and thick, like it was waiting for something to happen, for something to change.

Pepper must have told the others, before they'd gotten back from the hospital, because no one had smiled and laughed when they had come in, and instead Clint had silently clapped them both on the shoulder before leaving the room, and Steve had hugged each of them, tightly, before telling them softly that when they were ready to talk, he would be there, that it was going to be all right, that things were going to work out. Thor had thumped his fist against his chest, then saluted them, quietly. They were supposed to be displays of solidarity, they were supposed to be things that made them feel better, but neither of them  _felt_ any better.

“What do we do now?” Johnny whispered, voice cracking.

“I don't know.” Tony murmured.

“I didn't think... I thought...” he struggled as he tried to find the words to say what he meant, closing his eyes. “I thought we were – I didn't realize...”

“Yeah,” Tony said gently, knowing exactly what he meant. “Yeah.”

“I need a drink.” Johnny declared.

“So do I.” Tony agreed, and pushed himself up straight, then stood, heading over to the side of the room. There was a wooden liquor cabinet, in the bed room of all places, and sorted through the bottles for a moment, and finally came back to the bed, offering Johnny a heavy leaded glass with about two fingers of whiskey in it. “Here.” 

“Thanks,” Johnny murmured, hollowly, and took the glass, staring into it instead of drinking it. 

Tony hesitated, then stepped between Johnny's knees, and curled his hand against the back of the younger man's neck, and tugged him forward so that Johnny's forehead bumped into Tony's stomach, and held him, gently, just trying to keep him close. “We'll get through this, firefly.”

Johnny whimpered, his shoulders starting to shake.

Closing his eyes, Tony pressed his lips tightly together, just holding him close and tried to stay cool and calm and quiet, and pretended that there weren't drops of salty tears dropping into the whiskey in his glass. 

  
  


\---

  
  


Pepper took a deep breath, and straightened her jacket before she knocked firmly on the wooden door before her.

There was a moment of silence, then the door open the three inches afforded by the chain, and Mary Jane's pale face peeked from the other side of the door. Her eyes widened, and she closed the door again, then unchained the door, and opened it, quickly. “Miss Potts... come in.”

“Pepper,” she corrected, but stepped into the little apartment.

It was a small apartment, but Mary Jane had obviously spent a lot of time making it home, with a crocheted afghan pooled on the couch, and clearly she had been sitting on the couch just before Pepper had knocked on the door, wrapped in the blanket. The afternoon sun had been mostly blocked out by shades pulled down over the windows, but she hurried forward, quickly, to let the shades up, filling the little room with golden warmth. 

“Pepper, right.” Mary Jane smiled faintly at her, and gathered up the blanket, sitting awkwardly on the end of the couch, the blanket pooled in her lap. “Ah... can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, water...?”

“No, thank you.” She smiled at her, and settled on the other end of the couch, quietly. 

“Okay.” Mary Jane murmured, quietly, twisting the blanket in her fingers, like she wasn't sure what to say or do, now. “So, um...”

“How are you doing, Miss Watson?” Pepper asked, gently. 

“MJ.” She said, quickly.

“Right,” she smiled softly, and set her briefcase aside, gently. “How are you doing, MJ?”

“Not so well.” Mary Jane admitted, taking a deep breath as she met the other woman's eyes. “I'll be honest, I’m doing well. I mean... Tony and Johnny aren't going to have a kid now, because I – because I lost it.”

“No, MJ...” Pepper shifted forward, squeezing the other woman's knee. “No. You did nothing wrong, it's not your fault.”

“That's what they said,” she said, smiling faintly, pale. 

“And it's true.” She said, firmly. “Look, MJ... you're a beautiful, smart girl. And you did a _very_ noble thing, by offering to be their surrogate. And the doctors say that you've been asking about how soon they can try again.”

“I have been,” Mary Jane nodded, quickly. 

“You should take some _time_ , MJ,” Pepper said, quietly, squeezing her knee again. “A miscarriage is a big thing, it's not just something you get over. Even if this was not your child, and you were never expecting to actually _have_ the child, it's an emotional thing, losing a child. You really ought to take more time, get over it...”

“The moment the doctor says that I am medically capable of becoming pregnant again, I _will_ try again.” She said, fiercely. “Fuck time off. No offense, I mean. But I can't. I have to try again. It's not for _me_ , Pepper, it's for _them._ It's for Tony and Johnny.”

“MJ, you have your whole life to try this...”

“Please, Pepper...” Mary Jane took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. “Tony's your family, right?”

Pepper hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, Tony's my family.”

“And don't you want your family to be... to be complete? To be _happy_?” 

The other woman hesitated, and closed her eyes before she nodded, quietly. “I do. But I think you're part of our family too, now, Mary Jane. So I don't want you to be in pain, because you didn't take the time to recover properly before you rushed into something.”

“Thank you,” she said, softly. “But I promised them. They _will_ be fathers. They're gonna have a baby.”

Pepper nodded, then smiled softly at her. “I'm sorry, MJ. I just don't want you to hurt yourself.”

“It's going to be okay.” Mary Jane said, softly. “It is.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Things were slowly getting back to a semblance of normal. After all, villains still attacked New York, and the Avengers still had to step in to save the city. And if the Avengers had shown up without Iron Man, well... people would have asked questions. They'd never announced to the world at large that they were going to have a child, so the world didn't  _know_ , no one knew but them and a few close friends. So they tried to act as though everything was normal.

Only Tony was quieter than normal. And Johnny didn't make the same lame jokes he usually did. 

Things  _weren't_ normal.

Everyone was sort of pussy footing around the issue, like they were walking on egg shells, trying to be as quiet and understanding as they could, but it was hard. Hulk didn't understand what was going on, so he was brash and loud, and Maggie wanted to know why Uncle Tony and Uncle Johnny didn't want to play rocket football anymore. 

Coulson knocked on the glass door of Tony's lab, and when the inventor looked up, he lifted a single hand, quietly. 

The door opened a moment later, and JARVIS said, “Agent Coulson, sir.”

“Thanks, JARVIS.” Tony muttered, and pushed the welding goggles up onto his forehead. “Hey, Coulson. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to see how you were doing.” He said, quietly, folding his hands in front of him.

“Hn. You're the first one to ask. Everyone else just avoids it.” Tony rolled his eyes, and set the welding torch down on the table, cutting it off, finally, and turning to face Coulson properly. “I'm dealing. Thanks.”

Coulson nodded, considering him for a moment. 

“Was that it?” Tony asked, frowning.

“No.” Coulson shook his head, and stepped closer to him. “Tony, SHIELD is behind you with this. They want you to know that you have their support.”

“Oh, that's great. That makes me feel _so_ much better.” He scoffed, and slid his goggles back down over his eyes. “Is that all?”

“Tony. Don't destroy yourself over this.”

“I'm not going to.” Tony hesitated, one hand resting on the metal hunk that was laying on the table. If someone were to examine what he was working on, they would realize that he was working on some kind of cradle. “I'm going to keep going. Johnny and I _will_ be fathers, Coulson. We _will_ have a child.”

“I know. I have faith.” Coulson hesitated, then squeezed Tony's shoulder. “Be careful, Tony.”

“Yeah, of course.” He nodded.

  
  


\---

  
  


“You okay?”

Johnny looked up from his coffee, which he hadn't been drinking, just staring into. Natasha was leaning on the side of the table, beside him, watching him, quietly. “Um. Yeah. I’m okay.”

“Oh, Johnny.” She shifted closer to him, and set her hand on his shoulder. “I know it's been only a few weeks. It's all right if you're _not_ okay.”

He shook his head, sitting up a little straighter, sipping at his coffee as though trying to prove to himself that he was all right. “No, really... I’m okay. It's... I’m not  _all right_ , but I’m okay. It's gonna... it'll be okay.”

Natasha nodded, quietly, watching him. “How're you and Tony doing?”

“We're not really, ah... talking.” Johnny admitted, picking up a spoon, and stirring the coffee, quietly. “Neither of us can get the words together. We don't see each other all day, and then we spend all night, laying in the same bed, not sleeping, not talking.” 

“Maybe you need some help?” She suggested, pulling out a chair so that she could sit across from him, brows furrowed.

“What, like a psychologist? No thanks.” He laughed softly, and shook his head. “No thank you. It's just a... a rough patch. It's just a thing we have to get over. The doctors say they're gonna try again. They're gonna get us through this. I mean, look... it's not like me and Tony are a married couple, or... or a couple at _all_ that are working through this. We're just two guys, who are trying to have kids. It – it will work out.”

“Sure,” she said, softly. “Sure, Johnny.”

“I mean it.” Johnny smiled faintly at her. “We'll get through it. We'll have kids.”

  
  


\---

  
  


It had been just over six weeks since Tony and Johnny had been rushed to the hospital when Steve flicked the light on in Joseph's nursery, and stopped, startled.

“...Tony?”

Stark sighed, softly, and lifted his head. He was standing beside the cradle, where Joseph slept, sucking on his fingers as he did, his teddy bear curled against his side. Meeting Steve's eyes, he smiled faintly, and said, “Hey, Steve.”

“What's going on, Tony?” He asked, softly, stepping up beside him. His friend reeked of alcohol, which worried him, but Tony was just watching Joseph. 

“Nothing, just... thought I heard him crying, came to check. He wasn't, just... must've imagined it.” Tony murmured.

“...you okay, Tony?” 

“Yeah, of course,” he nodded, and gently reached up to fix the soft flannel blanket that was spread over the little boy. “Yeah, I’m okay. I guess I just... just wanted to make sure that he was all right.”

Steve took a deep breath, and curled his arm around his friend's shoulder, hugging him to his side. “Joey's fine, Tony. And you will be, too, you and Johnny will be okay. Right now, all you've got is each other, right? You ought to focus on each other, to get through this.”

He hesitated, and nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“How _are_ you and Johnny doing?” Steve asked, after a long moment, still holding his friend to his side. 

“We're...” Tony hesitated. 

The Captain watched him, quietly, meeting his eyes. “Tony?”

“It's complicated.”

Steve sighed softly. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“Thanks for trying, though.” He smiled at him, and brushed his fingertips lightly over Joseph's downy curls. The little boy yawned and wiggled, then went back to sucking his fingers, and slipped back to sleep. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“Do you think we should repaint the nursery?”

Johnny looked up from the tablet he was working on, frowning slightly. “What, paint the nursery?”

“Yeah,” Tony nodded, standing at the doorway that lead into the nursery itself. He'd built it out of what had once been a guest bedroom, once upon a time, because he wanted to make sure that the child was close to them. He wanted the baby close. “Paint it a different colour, maybe. Maybe that would help.”

“Painting the nursery won't make you feel any better, Tony.” Johnny said, coldly.

Tony sighed slightly, and closed the door, taking another deep pull of his whiskey. “Firefly...”

“I _don't_ want to repaint the nursery, Tony.” He sighed, heavily, and looked up. He was laying against the pillows, and there was a glass similar to Tony's sitting on the bedside table beside him. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you, or anything, I just... I don't see what the good is in painting the nursery.”

“Yeah, okay. Fine.” Tony took a deep breath, and headed over to the bed. He settled on the other side of the bed, and Johnny glanced at him, looking at the massive _gap_ between them. It was maybe only a few feet, in real life, but in his mind, it felt like a huge gulf of space. It felt like Tony was a world away at the moment, even though they were in the same bed. 

Johnny picked up his glass, and drained the last of it before murmuring, “So...”

“Yeah?” Tony glanced at him.

The blond met his gaze for a moment, then looked away, quickly, and shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing, sorry, just... thinking aloud.”

“Hm.” Tony shrugged, and shifted to lay on his side, his back to Johnny.

Johnny sighed, and set his tablet aside, slipping out of the bed. 

When he did, the other shifted in the bed, rolling back so he could face him again, watching as Johnny moved across the room. For a long few moments, it was still and silent in the room, except for Johnny moving around, bending to pick up the clothes that were scattered across the floor. Once, when this house had actually been a family home, there had been a whole staff to keep the place clean. There had been maids, and they had cleaned everything, and they had been the ones that had picked up the clothes when Tony tossed them on the floor, before. But there weren't maids here, now, it was just the Avengers and the systems that JARVIS ran to keep the house clean, and lately, when Tony wasn't feeling like it, there were clothes everywhere. 

It was those clothes that Johnny was picking up, now, then he finally shoved the clothes in the hamper, and said, “Tony, you really need to pick up after yourself.”

“What?” Tony scoffed. “They're just clothes.”

“Yeah, they're just clothes,” he grumbled. “That you never pick up. Seriously, I’m not your maid.”

“No,” Tony sat up, frowning. “No, you're not my maid.”

“And I’m not your _wife_ , either. So pick up your damn clothes, all right? Good enough?” Johnny frowned, spreading his hands. 

“I never asked you to pick up my clothes.” He said, almost shockingly coldly.

“Yeah, well somebody has to. I live in this room too, Tony. I don't like tripping over your clothes all of the time.”

“You don't need to live here.” Tony said, after a moment.

“No. You're right.” Johnny scowled. “I don't. I’m only here because of the sex, and we haven't had _that_ in over a month. Over a fucking _month_. So now I just look like some gold digging boyfriend, or something, only here for the sex and the money, and since I’m not getting the sex, I guess I must be here for the money, then.”

“Get out.” Tony snapped, brows furrowed. “I don't _ever_ want to see you again.”

“Done.” Johnny said, and turned, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. 

The other man stared at the door, stunned, and said, slowly, “...Johnny?”

Only the door didn't open again, and Johnny didn't walk back into the room like everyone else always did. Everyone left him, but those that mattered knew that he said these things, that he didn't mean them. When he'd yelled at Pepper before, that he didn't want to see her again, she scoffed at him, and came back the next morning, anyway. And when he'd yelled that at Rhodey, his friend shook his head and refused to stop talking despite his friend's anger. When he snapped that at Steve, his friend just looked like a kicked puppy until Tony finally gave in and did whatever Steve wanted in the first place. But in five years, he'd never actually managed to  _fight_ with Johnny before. He'd never actually fought with him, so like he'd told Mary Jane before, he never had the chance to see if they stayed angry.

Johnny, apparently, stayed angry.

  
  


\---

  
  


Clint frowned when he stepped into the kitchen, and realized that Tony was slumped at the table, in the dark, with a bottle of bourbon sitting in front of him. He flicked the light on, and arched a brow when the man just sort of groaned, and otherwise didn't move. “...Tony?”

“Fuck off, Clint.” He muttered.

“Sure.” He pulled a chair out from the other side of the table, and settled into the seat across from her. “What's going on? This still about the kid?”

“Sure,” Tony said, finally, pouring himself another glass of bourbon. He missed the glass, slightly, though, and managed to spill some of it across the table. He sighed, heavily, when he saw it, and set the bottle down on the table, and picked the glass back up so that he could take another swig of it. “Sure, this could be about the kid.”

Clint frowned. “...usually by now, Johnny comes to mop your drunk ass up.”

“Yeah, guess he does.” He grumbled. 

“...so where _is_ Johnny?”

“Honestly?” Tony lifted his glass, considering the liquid inside, then took a swig. Grimacing slightly, he set it back down, and said, “Probably in the Baxter Building.”

Clint blinked. “...what the fuck is he doing there?”

“Living?” Tony snorted.

He narrowed his eyes as he considered the inventor, then said, slowly, “You broke up.”

“There was nothing _to_ break up, apparently.” He started pouring bourbon in the glass again, forgetting that it was still mostly full, and spilled some on the table top. “Dammit. Well, that was a waste.”

“Seriously,” Clint frowned. “You _seriously_ broke up. Because of the miscarriage? Have another damn baby! Seriously!”

“Laundry.”

“What?” He gaped at him.

“ _Laundry.”_ Tony said again, exaggerating the word as he said it. “We broke up... over _laundry_.”

“...you're kidding.”

“If I was kidding... would I be _this_ drunk?” Tony asked, lifting his glass, then knocked back another deep swallow of the bourbon. “Fuck. _Fuck_. This always happens. Always. Every time. _Every_ time. This is why I don't do relationships. Cause if I do them, they leave. Every time. Everyone leaves me. _Everyone_ leaves me.”

“Tony...” Clint cleared his throat, not sure what to say. 

He set his glass down, and his lower lip sort of trembled, like Tony was fighting to keep himself calm, and was failing. “...Johnny left. We were fighting over  _laundry_ , and I said I didn't want to ever see him again.”

“Well, there's your problem, dumbass.” Clint rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. There's my problem.” He said, quietly, and sipped at his bourbon again. “He stays angry.”

  
  


\---

  
  


It was Logan that took the elevator up to the top floor of the Baxter Building, about a week after Johnny had stormed out of the Avengers mansion. He stepped out of the elevator, thumbs hooked in his pockets, and called, “Anyone home?”

Reed Richard's head leaned out of the lab at the end of the large penthouse laboratory, though his shoulders didn't go with it like they would on a normal person, because his neck was apparently stretched out dozens of feet longer than it normally would, like he was a human head on top of a python's body. “Logan? Oh!  _Oh_ ! Thank goodness.” 

A moment later, Reed's body followed his neck, and the scientist stepped forward to offer him his hand. “An Avenger, thank god. What is going  _on_ ?”

“A lot, apparently. How's Johnny doing?”

Reed huffed, and threw up his hands. “I don't know. He's not really doing anything, I guess. He's been in his old bedroom since he came home a week ago, and except for alcohol runs and occasionally setting off the sprinklers, he hasn't done anything. Hasn't said a word.”

Logan nodded, and sighed, heavily. “He and Tony broke up.”

“....oh.” Reed said, stunned. “But... oh, was it because of the baby...?”

“It might have been.” He nodded, and shrugged. “We don't know, really, what happened. But I figured I’d come see if we can get anything outta him.”

Reed scratched the back of his neck, and sighed. “Well, if you wanna try and get any intelligent responses out of him, be my guest. He's in the room at the end of the hall, on the left.”

“Thanks.” Logan grunted, and headed to the end of the hall, opening the door without knocking. He wrinkled his nose, displeased at the smell of a man that hadn't bathed in a week, and the alcohol scent was strong enough that it sounded like a brewery in there. He glanced back at Reed, who shrugged, and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. “Hey, sparkbug. How you doing?”

“Fuck off,” the mass of blankets on the bed – that presumably had Johnny under them – said. 

“Yeah, that's not happening.” He shook his head, and stepped closer, sitting on the edge of the bed, which creaked slightly under him. Furniture didn't usually like holding men with a few hundred pounds of adamantium bonded to their skeleton, but he'd sort of figured that, at least in this building, things would have been built to withstand the Thing. Maybe not, so much. “You stink, by the way.”

“Whatever,” Johnny shifted, and finally bleary blue eyes peered over the top of the blankets. “What do you want?”

“To figure out what the fuck is going on, actually.” Logan arched a brow. “I pulled the short straw. I have to talk to you. What's up with Tony?”

“Nothing,” Johnny muttered, and burrowed back under the blankets.

“Right. So you're coming back to the mansion, then?”

“Obviously not.” The Human Torch muttered, and stayed completely buried. 

“Right then. Well... I tried.” He stood, and wrapped his arms around the bundle of blankets on the bed, lifting him up off of the bed. Johnny yelped and howled and kicked at the air as he picked him up, but Logan ignored his protests as he headed to the door, opening it up, and carting him into the hallway. 

Reed gaped at him, confused. “...what are you doing?”

“It's for his own good,” Logan shrugged, and headed towards the other end of the hall, where he could catch the faint whiff of soap and the scent of cleanliness. 

“Get _off_ of me!” Johnny howled, and his whole body flared into flames as he was carted down the hall, burning up his clothes and the blankets that were around him, and, in fact, Logan's shirt. The crackling scent of burning flesh and hair filled the air to add to the scent of alcohol and body odour, but unlike everyone else _ever_ , Logan didn't let go of Johnny when the man lit on fire. Johnny actually cut his flames off, a moment after he realized that, because he wasn't actually an _evil_ person, but it was a little too late for his clothes. 

Or for the sprinklers, which started going a few moments later, and Reed yelped as he darted to cover some of his less-than-waterproof paperwork.

Logan smiled, grimly, and carted Johnny into the bathroom, and dropped the other man unceremoniously in the tub before he flicked on the water, and tugged the shower curtain closed. “Look, I don't care if you want to stay broken up with Tony for the rest of your life. But you're a fucking Avenger, so act like it, you idiot. Get cleaned up, get yourself presentable.”

“I'm not going anywhere.” Johnny snapped, from the other side of the curtain, as Logan sat on the lid of the toilet, arms crossed over his chest as he waited for him. 

“I don't really care. But the press is about to catch wind that their favourite power couple is broken up, and the reporters are going to be all over this place like sharks. I know you used to like them, so at least try and look less like a homeless freak.”

“I hate you,” Johnny muttered, behind the curtain, but to Logan's relief, there was a scent of soap filling the air, and he knew that would help. Because trying to deal with _that_ would drive him nuts. “And I’m not an Avenger.”

“Bullshit.” Logan drawled. “I don't care if you don't come to club meetings, but you're a fucking Avenger, got it?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, quietly. 

“Good. So act like it.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Rhodey stepped into the garish lights of the strip club, shading his hands with his eyes for a moment as he tried to figure out what exactly was going on, looking around. At last, he spotted what he was looking for, and sighed as he neared the centre of the strip club. The music was pounding around them, loud and overbearing, and the strobe lights were flicking across the dark space as he moved through the club.

There was a gathering of mostly naked women at one of the tables, and it wasn't until he got closer, he could see Tony in the midst of the veritable sea of flesh. 

“Tony?” Rhodey said, as quietly as he thought he could and still be heard over the music.

His old friend looked up, blinking, then his eyes brightened, and he grinned up at him. “Rhodey! Rhodey old buddy! How'd you get here?”

He arched a brow. “Someone called me and told me to come get you.”

“That was me,” one of the girls giggled, waving at him. She had straw blond hair tied into pigtailed braids, freckles scattered across her nose, and dressed in a pair of skimpy denim over-all shorts, with no top other than the 'bib' of the over-alls. “He said that of all the contacts in his phone, you were the one most likely to actually come and get him.”

“...how drunk _is_ he?” He asked. 

“Very,” one of the other girls, a gorgeous curvy woman with her hair tied into a thousand tiny braids, smirked. She was draped over Tony's shoulders, sort of playing with his tie. “But it's not his fault!”

“It's not his fault.” Rhodey arched a brow, and came closer to the little group, watching as the women parted like the Red Sea to let him get closer to his friend. “How is it not his fault? Did someone pour it down his throat?”

“No, obviously he drank it himself,” a redhead sitting on the edge of the table said, her legs crossed. “But the situation in which he needs to drink is not his fault!”

“Tony?” Rhodey frowned.

“...Johnny left me.” Tony said, leaning back on the chest of the woman that was holding him up, pouting up at Rhodey. “Johnny left me. I’m alone. I’m _always_ alone.”

“Of course you are,” Rhodey sighed. “Johnny _left_?”

“He left me.” Tony said again, and a few of the girls cooed and leaned over to stroke his hair. 

“Shit, Tony... you should have called me.” He said, and leaned on the edge of the table, looking down at the man who was falling apart at the seams right in front of him. “You should have said something. Are you okay?”

His friend shook his head, pouting.

“Johnny left him!” A girl dressed as red riding hood said, looking upset. “They left _him_! He didn't deserve all of that! He deserved to be loved and cherished, not dumped like yesterday's garbage. And after they lost a baby, too!”

“Lost a _baby_?” Rhodey repeated, looking sharply at Tony.

Tony was swirling his glass, watching the ice cubes inside clinking against each other. “I told you were hiring a surrogate and trying to have children. Well, great success, she got pregnant. And then the baby died. Three and a half months in, the baby died. We lost the baby.”

“Shit, Tony...” Rhodey breathed.

“Yeah.” He knocked back the whiskey, and sighed, heavily. 

“It's just not fair, is it?” Red Riding Hood said, stroking Tony's jaw, lightly. “This sort of thing shouldn't happen to anyone. I mean, outside of soap operas, I mean. He doesn't deserve that.”

“No one deserves that,” another girl said, fiercely.

“No, no one does.” Rhodey agreed, and stood, offering Tony his hand. “C'mon, Tony, let's get you home. Get you in bed.”

“Home?” Tony looked up at him, blinking blearily. “Home? Are you coming with me?”

“Well, I’m taking you home.”

“Don't leave me, Rhodey,” Tony said, sounding like he was a little boy, hiding in the closet from the monster he was sure was under his bed. “Move into the mansion with us. Live with me. I’ll buy you a plane. I’ll buy you a plane _carrier_. Hell, I’ll fix your armour again. I’ll let you be War Machine without even complaining. Come on, Rhodey... everyone leaves me. Don’t leave me?”

“We'll talk about this when you're sober,” he said, helping him up.

“Take good care of him!” The farmer girl said, earnestly.

Rhodey nodded, slinging Tony's arm over his shoulder so that he could help me actually walk, and headed out into the parking lot, where he knew Happy was waiting with the car. “C'mon, Tony, let's get you to bed.”

“Don't leave me, Rhodey,” Tony whispered.

  
  


\---

  
  


“Another glass?”

“Please.”

Johnny leaned forward to pour the woman that sat across the table from him another glass of wine. He was trying very hard to pretend to be normal and collected and calm, to pretend that he was  _over_ this. But he was pretty sure it wasn't working.

After all, the woman sitting across the table from him, with dark chestnut waves of hair, and dark brown eyes, wasn't naked in his bed. She was sitting across the table from him, sipping at a glass of wine, and basically acting as therapist. He took a deep breath, and refilled his own glass before sipping at it, quietly. “So,” he murmured. “Engineering, huh? Must be fascinating.”

“I enjoy it,” she nodded. “Super heroing must be fascinating.”

Johnny scoffed slightly, and shook his head, drinking his wine again, eyes on the table, instead of on her breasts, where they would normally be. “Sometimes, but usually it's just sort of stressful.”

She reached across the table to squeeze his fingers, and he hesitated for a moment, trying to remember her name. It took him a long moment, actually, to remember that it was Christina, and he relaxed slightly when he remembered it. Well, that had to help a little. “I'm sure it could be. So, tell me, Johnny Storm... what makes a guy like you invite a girl like me home?”

He shrugged. “You ah... guess you're just my type.”

Christina smirked, crookedly, and he realized with a jolt in his chest why exactly he'd been so drawn to her in that crowded bar, and it wasn't her sleek curves, it wasn't her bright eyes, it wasn't the confident way she carried herself. It was that devious little crooked smirk, the one that Tony always used to give him when he would look up from whatever he was working on, and realize that Johnny was trying to entice him to leave his work for a bit and get suitably distracted. This girl had Tony's grin. 

“Well, seeing as how your type, for a long time, has been Tony Stark, and he tops nearly every list of the top hottest men of all time, I suppose I should be flattered,” she grinned, sipping at her wine. 

“Yeah, guess so,” he murmured, smiling at her.

“So why _did_ you break up, anyway?” She frowned slightly. “Or did you not? Am I just a fling on the side?”

“No, that's not...” Johnny cleared his throat, shaking his head. “No, we're... not together.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, softly. 

“Thanks,” he nodded, swirling his glass slightly, letting the wine whirl around in the glass. “Things sort of... fell apart, I guess. We weren't really together, anyway.”

“What do you mean, you weren't really together?” Christina frowned, brows furrowed. “That doesn't make any sense. You've been together for five years. Everyone knows, you've been together for five years, since Maggie was born. Hell, you were on the news together, five years ago.”

“It's complicated,” Johnny sighed, setting down his glass. “It was a... a one-night-at-a-time stand. We weren't together. We just... were together.”

“Then why did you stay with him for five years?” Christina said, softly. 

“The sex was amazing?” Johnny laughed, breathlessly.

She laughed, and reached across the table to squeeze his hand, again. “Oh Johnny.”

“Johnny?”

He twisted in his seat, blinking when he saw his sister standing in the entrance of the room, her blond hair mussed up, wearing a thick fluffy robe. “Sue? Shit, I thought you and Reed were out tonight...”

“We were,” she rubbed her eyes, and stepped closer, her soft and sleepy expression hardening as she realized that there was a woman sitting across the table from him. “Well then. Johnny, can I speak to you for a moment?”

“Be right back,” he said, quickly, and slid out of his seat, following his sister into the hallway. “Sue...”

“What the hell is this, Johnny?” She demanded, voice low and rough.

“Her name's Christina, she's a very nice girl...”

“I don't care.” She cut him off. “After everything that's happened, what the hell is this?”

He hesitated, then drew himself up a little. “She's a very nice lady that I met in the bar, and decided to invite home. Technically, I’m allowed to do that, you know. This is my house, too.”

“Go _home_ , Johnny.” Sue said, and he was surprised by how pained her blue eyes looked. “Stop lying to yourself, and go home.”

“Sue, it's not - “

“Stop trying to smother the pain.” She said, and abruptly hugged him, burying her face in his collarbone for a moment. Finally, Sue drew back, and murmured, “I don't care if you're a man, Johnny, you're not like that. You're allowed to have emotions. You're allowed to feel. Stop trying to smother it with everything else.”

“I'm not – I’m not smothering anything.” Johnny said, finally.

“I'm your sister, Johnny. You can lie to your friends, you can lie to the press, you can even lie to yourself... but you can't lie to me.” Sue cradled his jaw in her hands, smiling softly at him, then said, “You're allowed to feel. You're _allowed_ to mourn. Stop hiding.”

“Sue...”

“Please.” She said, softly.

“Okay.” Johnny said, finally, not sure what else to say.

Sue nodded, smiling softly at him, and slipped back down the hall, finally, going back to her bedroom. Johnny watched her go, confused, then shook his head, and headed back to the kitchen. Only Christina was gathering up her jacket and her purse, quickly. “Christina?”

“I just... I think you've got some things to work through, Johnny.” She smiled at him, and squeezed his shoulder. “I left my number, give me a call if you want, but...”

“You don't have to go...”

“Yeah, I think I do.” She smiled at him, that crooked grin, and his heart lurched. 

“Right.” He whispered.

  
  


\---

  
  


“JARVIS!” Tony howled, looking up at the ceiling in his lab, frustrated. “Where is my phone?!”

“I have taken the liberty of having Dummy putting it somewhere that you can't find it,” JARVIS said, calmly, sounding remarkably light hearted considering the circumstances. “As I feel that it would be a poor idea for you to have it right now.”

“It's _my_ phone.” He said, stubbornly.

“And with your current state of intoxication, there is a strong possibility that you would end up calling someone that you would likely hate yourself for having called, in the morning.”

Tony blinked, looking up at the ceiling, catching his hand on the fender of one of his cars, frowning. “What? I would not, I wasn't going to call anyone that I would regret in the morning. I really wasn't going to. Okay, I... I  _maybe_ entertained the thought of calling Johnny, but that's just because I – I miss his voice. I miss his stupid voice.” He grumbled, then hesitated. “But I wouldn't  _actually_ call him, because he  _left_ me. He. Left. Me. So no, I wasn't going to  _call_ him. Even if I do miss his voice...”

“This is precisely why, sir, I had Dummy take your phone.”

Tony took a deep breath, and sighed, heavily. “Fuck. I just... he never shut up, you know that? He was always talking. I guess I miss the chatter.”

“There are ways around that,” JARVIS offered, and the lights of the room suddenly dimmed, and a projection appeared a few feet away from him. Tony swiveled on his heel, almost tumbling when he looked up at what JARVIS was showing him, frowning. It was a video recorded in the house, and he frowned as he watched it, confused. In the video that JARVIS was playing, Tony and Johnny were in this same lab, and Johnny was sitting on the roof of the car as Tony worked on the engine. Every few moments, Johnny would toss a rag or a can, or some random object – objects that Dummy was helpfully feeding him, one by one – over the hood of the car, and laughing every time that Tony had to duck out of the way. 

Tony blinked, and curled his fingers around the neck of the bottle of rum he'd brought into the lab, and stumbled back a few steps, until he slumped into a seat. It rolled back a few feet, and he stared up at the screen, watching it. 

The video on the screen changed, and it was now a more distant shot, from in the garden, where Tony and Johnny were sitting together on one of the little park benches, their heads close together as they talked. He tried to remember what it was, that they had been talking about at the time, and lifted a hand, waving at the screen. “Zoom in on that, JARVIS, lemme see. Lemme hear.”

The video zoomed in, as he had ordered, and their voices suddenly spilled out into the room around him, wrapping around him as they talked, and he realized that they were talking about that stupid robot he had made for Johnny, for his birthday, three years ago. He'd slaved over that stupid thing for about two weeks, trying to hide it any time that Johnny had showed up in the lab, and Johnny had shown up in the lab a lot, during that time. It was a small one, just a little flying thing that had been built to zip around the house and spray fire extinguishing foam if Johnny managed to light anything on fire. He'd thought it was sweet, at the time, and he could remember how much Johnny had laughed at it. 

“You really think I’m that accident prone?” Johnny laughed, in the recording.

“I think you're flaming,” Tony could hear himself teasing, and ducked in the video when the blond swatted at him. “And hot. Very hot. I think you're hot enough to light lots of things on fire. So yeah, here you go. A fire extinguisher robot. Just for you.”

“Considering it's from you, it's probably the most amazing present I’ll ever get, too,” Johnny had laughed, and cupped his jaw, and kissed him, in the video.

“Change it, JARVIS.” Tony said, firmly, closing his eyes.

The sounds of the wind disappeared, and Tony slowly opened his eyes, and his breath caught. 

The video JARVIS was playing now was shot in the living room, on a winter's night about two years ago, when the city of New York had been blanketed by snow, and the whole world had been locked in by wind and snow. There had been a fire crackling in the fireplace, and Johnny had selected some stupid action movie and Tony had made microwave popcorn, and they had curled up on the couch. Johnny had settled himself in the corner, and Tony watched himself, watched himself curled between Johnny's legs, his head resting on the other's chest, a quilt pulled up over them as he had offered Johnny popcorn. 

In the video, he watched Johnny laugh, and open his mouth, saying cheerfully, “Feed me!”

And he watched himself pop a piece in his mouth, laughing.

Tony closed his eyes, and cracked the cap off of his bottle, knocking back a swig of it. “This is a cruel thing to show me, JARVIS.”

“I'm trying to help you remember, sir.”

“Hn. And here I am, trying to forget,” he muttered, watching the screen.

“Exactly,” JARVIS said.

  
  


\---

  
  


Of course, invariably, someone noticed that something wasn't quite normal with the Avengers. 

Natasha had commented, as they had been gearing up when they heard that Doctor Doom had attacked Manhattan almost a month after Johnny's departure, that she figured maybe it would start when someone noticed that the Human Torch wasn't fighting alongside them. 

It had actually been worse than that. Someone had noticed when Iron Man staggered and fell down at one point, and managed to fire one of his light repulsors at random, and a wall tumbled and fell, nearly crushing him. He'd been saved, naturally, by his armour, but that hadn't stopped people from actually paying attention. And it had been caught on someone's camera phone. 

“Oh god,” Pepper groaned, softly, as she slumped to sit on the couch. 

“Yeah,” Natasha agreed, and turned the volume up.

“... _reports that Iron Man was actually drunk while dealing with the threat, today, and there have been suggestions that he may actually be more of a threat than a hero, while fighting in this state_.”

“Oh, _Tony_.” Pepper groaned.

“...this is awful,” Steve murmured, quietly, holding Loki close to his side as they watched. Joseph was sleeping, quietly, in his arms, sucking on his fingers, and Maggie was playing on the floor with her legos, glancing up at the tv every often. Though she would get excited when she would spot someone she recognized on the television screen, she would lose interest extremely quickly, because it just wasn't colourful or bright enough, and it didn't keep her attention fast enough. “They're awful.”

“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” Loki murmured.

“ _The rumour mill, naturally, is running rampant as a cause for Iron Man's erratic behaviour, today. According to credible sources close to the Avengers, it has become clear what the cause of this was.”_ The reporter was saying, almost too cheerfully. “ _The power couple of Storm and Stark is no more. This source has revealed that Johnny Storm has moved out of the home they shared together, and that Tony Stark, apparently, is taking the break hard. Though we have had no contact with Storm, he has been seen in public, and seems to be dealing admirably_.”

The screen showed, in a quick flash, a short of Johnny leaving the Baxter Building, wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, and when he spotted the reporters, he tugged the collar on his leather jacket up, and hopped quickly on his motorcycle, and hurried away. 

“ _We'll bring any new developments on this story as it breaks_ ,” the reporter continued, brightly. “ _Now, in other entertainment news_ \- “

Natasha flicked the television off, setting the remote aside.

“That is _awful_ ,” Steve said, again, shifting Joseph gently, stroking his son's hair. 

Pepper sighed, heavily, and rubbed her forehead. “...we need to talk to Tony, we need to figure out what the hell is going on. We need to – we need to stop him. This is a PR nightmare.”

“Well, PR for Tony isn't your job anymore, remember?” Natasha smiled faintly. “You're the CEO, you have people who take care of that for you.”

“Yeah, I know.” She sighed, and straightened up. “But this is ridiculous. We barely managed to fend off the government the _last_ time he managed to piss a lot of people off, and made them think he was a weapon, and now he's a drunk idiot in the suit, and he almost killed himself. He could have easily killed someone else. We have to do _something_ to get him out of this funk! It's been a month! He wasn't this depressed when _we_ broke up.”

“So are you more concerned with jealousy that he is more upset now, or with his actions?” Loki asked, smirking slightly.

“Loki, this isn't helping.” She said, firmly, pointing at him. 

He shrugged, smirking slightly. 

“But this _is_ a little different than your relationship with Tony was, after all.” Natasha pointed out, gently. “You dated for maybe a few months, and that was about it. They lived together for five years, and were having children together. And they _lost_ that child. Things are slightly different.”

“Things are very different,” Pepper agreed. “We _need_ to do something.”

There was a crash near the door, and everyone spun to find Tony at the door, awkwardly picking up the chair that he had just managed to knock over. He grinned at them, awkwardly, and said, cheerfully, “Let's go to Vegas.”

“Vegas.” Pepper repeated.

“ _Vegas_.” He said again, and held up his glass, which seemed to be something of a permanent fixture on him, lately. “C'mon, ladies. We'll leave the Cap and his _lovely_ blushing bride here, to, ah... I dunno, _guard the city_. Let's go!”

“Well, you said you wanted to _do_ something.” Natasha pointed out.

“This was _not_ what I had in mind,” Pepper muttered.

  
  


\---

  
  


In the end, it was decided that Logan, Jan, Steve, Thor and Loki would stay behind to guard New York, and act as at least a token representation of the Avengers while they were gone, and the rest of the group were bundled on Tony's private jet, and sent off to Vegas. 

As much as this was a bad idea, Pepper sort of figured that maybe Tony would get distracted by the shiny lights, and would stop being  _quite_ so mopey.

And at first, it certainly seemed to be working. Tony was laughing and cheerful and signing autographs when people asked for them, and bounced slightly as he did. He had a spring in his step again. He felt like  _himself_ again, at least to the other people around them. Tony  _seemed_ normal. But those that knew him best saw the shadows lurking in the corners of his eyes, the way his smile seemed a little too forced.

“So what's the plan, Tony?” Pepper asked him, quietly, as they walked down a lighted walkway. 

“We're going to have _fun_.” He said, firmly, and flashed her one of the smiles that magazines often made a lot of money off of. “So party it up, Pep, gamble away, meet someone pretty and fall in love for the weekend, or something. You're a beautiful woman, you deserve to meet yourself another beautiful woman, yeah? So... be _happy_ , Pepper.” 

She glanced back at the others, who were following them, chatting lightly. Bruce and Clint were pointing out some of the sights, and Natasha was smiling as she corrected some of Clint's ridiculous points. “Right.”

Tony looped his arm around her waist, and hugged her to his side for a moment, laughing. “Be  _happy_ , Pepper.”

“I'll do what I can,” she said, smiling faintly at him.

That first night in Vegas, Tony managed to gamble on a few dozen craps games, making ridiculous decisions that he normally wouldn't have made, taking risks that he wouldn't have normally, and lost a few too many thousand dollars for Pepper's liking. 

The second night, he dragged them all out to a Cirque show, and got himself so ridiculously outrageously drunk in his seat, and heckling the show, that he almost got thrown out. Only something about the sheer fact that he as a Stark managed to avoid him actually getting thrown out, but afterwards, no one in the group was actually sure that they could remember a thing about the Cirque show itself, they'd been so distracted by Tony's antics. 

The third afternoon, Tony dragged them all to the Sapphire's Gentleman's Club. He had grinned at them all, and declared that it was, in fact, the world's largest strip club, and that it was something that they  _had_ to do. Snickering, he'd brought them to a table that he thought would give them a great view, ordered a round of drinks for everyone, then declared that this was going to be fun, god dammit, they were going to enjoy themselves. Maybe, he had suggested with a grin, they would get Pepper a lap dance.

“Fuck yes,” Clint grinned, eagerly. “Pepper, _yes_.”

“ _No_.” She said, shaking her head. She looked entirely out of place among the people here, in that, as the name of the club suggested, the clientele was mostly men. The women that _were_ there was mostly naked as they danced, so Pepper looked out of place in a sleek white strapless dress with a thick black belt around her waist, to cinch the dress in. “Thank you, Tony, but I do not need a lap dance.”

Tony, who pretty much hadn't had a chance to  _have_ a hangover, yet, while he'd been there, because he hadn't stopped drinking since they had arrived, snickered. “Come on, aren't the girls here pretty enough for you?”

“I'm sure many of them are very pretty,” she said, shaking her head. “But they're not really my type.”

Clint leaned forward. “So what's your type, then? Green dress Loki?”

“Oooh.” Tony pointed at Clint, then at Pepper, grinning. “Green dress Loki is a _very_ fine type to have. A very fine type. I would approve if your type was green dress Loki.”

“Green dress Loki,” she reminded him, “Is married to Steve.”

“Doesn't mean you can't like the angle of her... oh wait, that doesn't work... the curve of her... the ah... the wriggle of her wiggle?” Tony grinned.

Bruce snorted. “That makes no sense, Tony.”

“I know, I’m drunk,” he snickered, and sipped at his glass, again, humming. “Okay, so... of all the girls in this bar... of all of them. Any of them. Which of them would you sleep with?”

Pepper sighed, and sipped delicately at her drink. “I'm not playing this game with you, Tony.”

“Oi, you promised that we were going to have _fun_ , remember?” He grinned at her, mischievously. “So you're going to play my game. C'mon, Tash, tell her to play my game.”

“Oh no,” Natasha snorted, holding up her hands. She looked about as out of place as Pepper did, in a one-shoulder red dress that hugged her curves, her red hair worked into curls that cascaded over the shoulder that was left bare by her dress. “I am not going to encourage her to play this game, because if I do, you are going to make me play along, too, and I do _not_ want to play along with this game.”

“C'mon,” Tony protested, pouting dramatically. “If you could get _any_ girl in this room, no strings attached, to give you a lap dance. Any girl, Pepper. Any girl at all. Who would you want a lap dance from?”

Pepper sighed, then set her glass down and glanced at Natasha, helplessly.

Natasha shrugged.

Abruptly, as though she'd just had a good idea, Pepper swiveled in her seat, to face Tony properly, and declared, with great aplomb, “Natasha.”

The redhead and Clint choked on their drinks at pretty much the exact same moment.

“What?” Clint gaped at her.

Pepper shrugged, flushed. “She's the only woman I actually  _know_ here, so she'd be the only one I’d feel comfortable enough with.”

“I did... _not_ expect that.” Bruce blinked.

“Neither did I,” Tony frowned, then shrugged, and knocked back a swig of his drink. No one was quite sure _what_ he was drinking at that moment, because a perky half-dressed blond kept coming by with a tray, and Tony would select one at random from the selection. “But I’m all for it.”

“I'd pay to see it!” Clint declared.

“Not happening, Barton,” Natasha said, dryly, and waved the blonde waitress over. “Another, please?”

“Oh come on, Pepper said you're the only woman she'd - “

“That's _not_ what I said, Clint,” Pepper sighed, interrupting him. “I simply said, of all of the women in the bar... look, I am _not_ playing this game, Tony.”

Tony looked up from his glass, startled, then grinned, like an impish Peter Pan that had never actually managed to grow up. “You always play my games, Pepper. That's why I made you in charge. You're just... you know how to clean up after my mistakes, after... after everything. You'll help me clean up after this whole... this whole Johnny thing, right?”

Bruce stood, and cleared his throat. “Natasha, Clint, I think we're needed... ah... over there.”

Clint arched a brow. “Are you kidding? I’d rather watch Tony fa – ow!”

Natasha tugged on his ear, and informed him, calmly, “Bruce is right, we're needed over there. Come on, let's go.”

Grumbling the whole way, Clint stumbled along with the other pair of Avengers, leaving Pepper and Tony alone at their table with Tony's already impressive array of empty glasses. If she hadn't already known Tony's rather impressive talent for consuming alcohol in alarming quantities, Pepper would have been afraid that he'd be in danger of alcohol poisoning. After all, Tony hadn't really stopped drinking in – well, not the last month, really – the last three days, at least. It was like he'd waged war on his liver, and nobody and nothing was going to stand in his way.

Finally, when they were gone, Pepper asked, gently, “How are you doing, Tony?”

“I'm _fine_ , Pepper,” he waved her concern off, at once, dismissively. “Don't I look like I’m having a lot of fun?”

_Not really_ , she thought.

What Pepper said, however, was: “You weren't this much of a mess when  _we_ broke up, Tony.”

He laughed, and drained another glass before resting his elbows on the table, and his chin in his hand. “That was different, Pepper.  _You_ didn't leave.”

“...what?” She frowned at him, surprised.

“You didn't _leave_ ,” Tony said again, firmly. “Yeah, we broke up, and you were _right_ , we were totally toxic for each other, we were, but even though you and I weren't, you know, _together_ , you didn't _leave_. You were still here. You still worked and took care of me, and... and you didn't _leave_. Everyone _leaves_ me. Everyone goes away before I have a chance to tell them... they leave. You _didn't leave_.”

Pepper reached across to squeeze his hand, smiling gently at him. “I'm not going to leave you, Tony. You'd never manage without me.”

“Exactly!” Tony gestured to her.

“Exactly?” She repeated, arching a brow.

“Exactly,” he muttered, and snagged a glass off of the blonde's tray as she slipped past. “Excatly. I’m not managing so well without my firefly, am I?”

Pepper sighed softly, and squeezed his fingers again.

“Are you happy, Pepper?”

She blinked, surprised by the question. “Yes, I – I’m happy.”

Tony narrowed his eyes, as though he didn't quite believe her. “Really, Pepper. You're happy? Look, you're my  _family_ . I need you to be happy, okay? So are you  _happy_ ?”

“Yes, Tony, I’m happy.”

He considered her for a long moment, then asked, “Does Natasha make you happy?”

“Well...” she fumbled, trying to think of how to respond to that. “Well, she was an excellent personal assistant, and I do consider her a very good friend, so yes, I suppose you could say that she makes me happy. She makes me quite happy, actually.”

“Good.” Tony nodded. “So you should marry her.”

Pepper coughed on the drink that she had picked up only a moment before, and now seriously regretted having taken a sip of. “ _What_ ?”

“Well, lookit Steve and Loki!” Tony said, waving a hand. “They're married, right, and they are the happiest people on the planet! So you should marry Natasha, and you'll be happy, too!”

“I'm not sure that logic...”

“Natasha!” Tony stood, waving at the red head, then actually tumbled back into his seat. Completely refusing to be dissuaded, he laughed, and continued hollering. “Tash! C'mere!”

“Tony, you are extremely _drunk_ ,” Pepper hissed. “You know you get ridiculously excited about very stupid ideas when you're drunk...”

“Pepper,” Tony said, earnestly, as he leaned towards her. “I am not going to be here forever. Let's be honest here, I’m a ticking – a ticking time bomb of catastrophe. So when I’m gone – when I’m gone, someone has to make sure you're _happy_. C'mon, for me. Marry Natasha.”

“Excuse me?” Natasha herself said as she stepped up alongside Pepper. “Marry _who_?”

“Tasha!” Tony grinned at her, spreading his arms out triumphantly. “You'll marry Pepper, right? Make sure she stays happy?”

Clint nudged Bruce's shoulder, grinning, seeming all the more amused by the scientist’s shocked expression. “I think we won the lottery, big guy, seriously.”

Pepper sighed, heavily, then stood. “One moment, Tony, please?”

“Go! Talk. M'fine.” He waved.

Pepper caught Natasha's elbows and tugged her to the side, frowning slightly.

“He wants us to get _married_?” Natasha hissed, frowning. “Where in the world did he get the idea...?”

“Tony's... Tony is fragile right now.” Pepper chose her words delicately. “I can understand that, considering the circumstances. And you _know_ he always gets his way...”

“You want to get _married_ to shut Tony up?” Natasha demanded, skeptical.

“It's either that, or spend the next several years with Tony Stark making our lives impossible as he pesters incessantly.” She pressed her lips in a thin line. “I'm not about to just give into a drunk man's demands, Natasha, you know I wouldn't do that, but it's true that Tony _is_ fragile. And same-sex marriage isn't even legal in Nevada, in any case. It wouldn't be an actual legal marriage, and Tony... well, maybe it would help. Besides,” she added, with a twinkle in her eye, “Explaining that my impromptu vacation from work was to get married is easier to explain than 'Tony-sitting'.”

The Black Widow snorted, and shook her head. “They're more likely to believe Tony-sitting.”

“True, but this is _not_ the worst thing you've done for Stark-Tech,” Pepper pointed out.

“True.” The redhead agreed, then shook her head. “Fine. But I’m not being married by Elvis. I refuse.”

“I think our hotel has a chapel,” she smiled faintly, then squeezed Natasha's wrist lightly. “Thank you, Natasha. You know you don't have to do this.”

“I know,” she agreed.

“All right, we'll do it,” Pepper said, a few moments later, as the two women returned to the table. “But I’d best not hear any complaints about it, afterwards.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Clint grinned, delighted. “Hey, Tash, I’ll be your bridesmaid. Seriously. I would totally be there for you, whenever you choose to make ridiculous decisions in your life.”

She smiled tightly at him. “I'm sure you would, Barton.”

Tony caught Pepper's hands, and squeezed them tightly. “You've made me the happiest man in the world, Pepper, darling. So... Elvis or pirates?”

Bruce choked on his drink, this time.

“ _Neither_ , Tony.”

He hesitated. “...Klingon wedding?”

“ _No_.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Steve peeled his cowl off, and shook out his sweaty hair, frowning. “I never thought I’d say it, but Modok's men are infinitely easier to defeat when we have Iron Man there.”

“I could have told you _that_ a long time ago,” Loki laughed softly, reaching up to brush his husband's blond locks into a slightly more presentable arrangement. “Back in the day, your friend Tony seemed to make it his personal mission to make my life as difficult as was possible. I threw him out a window, once, for his mouth.”

“I remember,” Steve smirked, crookedly.

“What, you liked the idea of me pitching your friend from windows?” Loki arched a brow, smirking.

“At the moment, maybe that's exactly what he needs,” Steve muttered, unzipping his armour and stripping out of the heavily armoured top, relieved to be out of it, frankly. “I've never seen a man so unable to pick himself up by his bootstraps and move on. Johnny may have left him, but – well, damn it, he could go _talk_ to him, try to reconcile! The bottom of a bottle will do Tony no good.”

“I do so like when you get all fired up,” Loki purred.

The blond grinned, crookedly, at him, and said, “Wouldn't you rather be off the helicarrier before we get up to that?”

“No,” the god said at once, sliding his hands across his husband's sweaty smooth chest.

Steve laughed, and dipped his head to crush his lips against Loki's.

And that, naturally, was when his phone rang.

“Ignore it,” Loki ordered, curling his fingers on Steve's hips, nipping at the more muscular man's lower lip.

“But it could be important,” he murmured, fumbling to find his phone.

“ _I_ am important, Rogers.”

“Well, _that's_ true,” he agreed, readily, but his fingers were still searching for his phone, which he really only had because Tony had insisted. _He_ had been perfectly fine with a phone in the mansion if he needed to call anyone, and his Avengers ID card in case of emergency, but no one else had the patience to wait until he was home with a phone, anymore.

“Oh, for - “ Loki snagged the phone moments before Steve could, and answered it, impatiently. “Yes?”

Steve sighed, and removed the jacket of his uniform completely. There was no point in trying to wrestle his phone away from his husband, not that he was likely to try that, anyway. He was just hanging it up to air out when Loki said, quite loudly, “Pepper is marrying  _who_ ?”

He blinked, glancing back at his husband.”What was that...?”

“We're coming,” Loki said, then snapped the phone shut a moment later, and handed it to Steve. Only they weren't standing in the armory of the Helicarrier anymore, they were standing in the lobby of an excessively expensive looking hotel, and people – employees and guests alike – were starting to stare. One lifted his phone, and snapped a photo, with an unnecessarily bright flash. “Come, we need to find Tony and this fiasco he has created.”

“Loki... I’m half naked in the middle of a hotel!” Steve hissed.

The god glanced back at him, and smirked. “So you are. These mortals should consider themselves blessed to have seen you. Now,  _come_ .” He snagged his husband's hand, and tugged him along towards the chapel, with unerring accuracy.

Sure enough, there the Avengers that accompanied Tony – because, to be honest, they  _were_ Tony-sitting – were waiting, Clint with a look of pure glee and the others with an array of confusion to displeasure.

Tony was talking to his phone, apparently having an argument with JARVIS, but when they approached, he shoved it in his pocket. “Ah, you've arrived. Excellent. Steve.... you'll walk our dear Natasha down the aisle, won't you?”

Steve blinked at him, then at Natasha, who shrugged. “...who is she marrying?”

“That would be me,” Pepper raised a hand.

“Oh.” Steve blinked again. “I didn't know you two were....” He trailed off.

Clint sniggered into Bruce's shoulder.

Bruce, for his part, just sort of rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Natasha makes Pepper happy,” Tony clapped his shoulder. “And marriage has clearly made _you_ happy. So you'll walk her down the aisle, yeah? And _Loki_!” He rounded on the god, grinning. “Loki, babe, you can take care of gowns, right? You were so terribly good at that...”

“While I am thrilled,” Loki said, sarcastically, “That you recognize my substantial talents, you could appreciate me for more than my fashion sense.”

“And I do, I do... but Pep and Tasha need dresses, and you are so _very_ talented...”

Loki held up a hand, cutting him off. “Though flattery typically will get you everywhere, Stark, I am not as easily swayed as your firefly. However, in the interests of your ceasing talking, I have already finished.”

“You have?” Pepper asked, surprised.

Loki arched a brow at her.

Looking down at herself, Pepper started. She wore a sleek silk gown that all but spoke of old-world Hollywood glamour, with a one-shouldered tightly fitted bodice and a long, sleek skirt with a trailing train. “I'm not sure I’m quite ready for magical clothes.”

The god scoffed slightly.

Natasha, who had apparently been paying more attention to the conversation she was having on her phone than to what the others were talking about, finally realized that her own clothes had also been changed. Stepping forward with much rustling of crinoline, she said, arms crossed over a highly detailed and besparkled bodice, “Are wedding dresses not traditionally  _white_ ?”

“I didn't think you'd want to match too well,” Loki waved the protest off. “Red is a much better colour for you.”

She snorted, but unfolded her arms, and said, “So are we getting married or not?”

“Yes,” Tony said, at once, grinning as he grabbed her hands. She looked like she was going to shake him off, but Tony said, earnestly, “ _Thank you_ , Natasha,” and she didn't, just smiled faintly at him.

  
  


\---

  
  


Tony was alone again.

He was always alone, in the end. He'd learned that a long time ago, when his father always had too much on his mind, on his plate, to have time for him. He'd learned to depend on himself at a young age, but Obie used to help. Then Obie tried to kill him, and every expectation that he'd had, that he could have people by his side, that he could actually trust, had been shattered.

But Pepper hadn't left, and Rhodey hadn't left, and he'd started to open back up again. Then Steve had been a bundle of anger and sunshine and pain and joy in his life, staying steadily by his side, and then Steve had steadfastly refused to budge from his side, even when Tony screwed things up, again and again and again.

His jaded little heart, hidden behind bravado and an arc reactor, the little heart that Pepper had once made an homage to with a glass box, was slowly starting to realize that it could feel, again.

It wasn't why he'd let Johnny into it, little by little. He was trying to be honest with himself, and a drunk, self-destructive Tony usually was, and he'd let Johnny in because of that cheeky smirk and his ass in those spandex pants of his. But that wasn't why Johnny had wormed his way so thoroughly inot his heart that, when he'd left, Tony felt like he had when his godfather had ripped the arc reactor from his chest.

So he was alone. Again.

Tony had lost track of time and place, for the most part. He knew that he was in Las Vegas, he knew that Pepper and Natasha had gotten married, yesterday, and he'd handed his Pepper over to Natasha. He felt a bit like a suicidal man might, getting his affairs in order. “ _To my friend Natasha, I leave my most prized acquisition, my assistant – no, my CEO – Pepper Potts; to my friend Logan I leave the position of godfather to the angel I call Miss Maggie; to the asshole that left me with a gaping hole in my chest, I leave... well. May as well have the arc reactor, since you're the only one that'd understand it..._ ” The bar he was in now was quiet, mostly empty except for him, and the bartender. This was probably the second bartender he'd seen since he came in, he couldn't remember. Usually, bartenders stopped serving him by now, but they just kept bringing him drinks.

His phone started vibrating on the bar, screen lighting up.

Tony didn't really want to talk to anyone. He really didn't. But the face that came up on the screen was Mary Jane's, eyes bright and happy in the photo. He didn't want to talk to anyone, but maybe he owed Mary Jane something.

Picking up the phone, he said, “Hey.”

“Tony?” Mary Jane's voice came through the speakers, sounding as hopeful and excited as she had the day just over six months ago, now, when she'd said that the treatment had worked, that she was pregnant. Tony had to swallow hard and close his eyes. He didn't _want_ to remember that. “I tried to call the mansion, they told me you were away... I know we haven't talked lately, but... are you okay? I mean, with Johnny and you breaking up and everything...”

“I'm fine,” he said, hating how rough he sounded.

He could almost  _hear_ Mary Jane hesitating, not sure that she believed him, then she said, after a moment, “Well, that's good.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, then twisted in his chair, suddenly wanting to be in motion, facing the moment proactively. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he said, “Look, MJ, I’ve been meaning to call you for awhile. I never meant to just sort of drop off the face of the planet like I did, how have you been doing anyway? I mean, I know this was hard on you, too.”

“I'm fine, Tony,” she said.

“You don't need to lie for my sake, MJ, I know it was – it wasn't good for you, either,” He hurried on, as though if there was silence for too long, he'd fill it with things he didn't actually want to say. “I understand.”

“No, Tony, I don't think you do,” she laughed. “I'm pregnant.”

Tony felt numb for a moment. “Well, ah... congratulations.”

“It's yours, dummy,” she was laughing on the phone, which didn't seem like a nice thing to do after insulting a person, but Tony couldn't even feel his hand holding the phone at the moment, he felt like he'd been turned to stone. “The doctors did it. They said they figured out what went wrong last time, they fixed it, and they implanted the embryos again, they said it worked this time, Tony, you are going to be a father. I promised, didn't I? I promised you'd be a father, Tony. Tony? Tony? Aren't you going to say anything, Tony?”

He opened his mouth, and found he couldn't say a word for a long moment.

Finally, he cleared his throat, and said, “That's – that's wonderful news, MJ.”

“Are you okay, Tony?” She asked, worried.

“Yeah,” he said, suddenly laughing, breathlessly. “Yeah, I am. I’m okay. I am. That's great news, MJ. Just wasn't expecting that.”

“Good,” she said, and he was pretty sure she was crying.

“Thank you, MJ,” Tony whispered.

“Do you want me to call Johnny, or...?”

“No.” He said, quickly, clearing his throat, wiping at eyes that were not watering, dammit. “No, I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you sure?”

_No_ .

“Yes.”

“Okay. Will I see you soon?” Mary Jane asked, almost nervously. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll want to see you soon,” he nodded, uselessly. She couldn't see him do it. “I'll come by your place when I’m back in New York.”

“Okay.”

There were some other pleasantries – Tony was sure there had to have been – a few little things they said to say goodbye, then Tony found himself grinning like an idiot as he stared at his phone on the counter. He  _was_ going to be a father. There was hope again, a light at the end of the tunnel.

The light flickered though, after a moment.

He was going to be one of two dads to a little life. One of two. Johnny was going to be a father, too.

Tony took a deep breath, and picked up his phone again, dialing a familiar number.

On the fourth ring, a familiar voice said, “Tony?”

He swallowed hard, eyes tightly closed, and said, “MJ's pregnant again. The doctors say they fixed it this time, you're going to be a father.”

There was a long moment of silence, then Johnny breathed, “... _oh_ .”

Tony cleared his throat. “Yeah, well... I thought you should know. You're going to have a child.”

“Ah, where – where are you? Maybe we should – we should meet for coffee or something....”

“I'm out of state.”

“...oh.” Johnny sounded almost lost. “Well, when you get back to New York, maybe we should, ah...”

“Yeah, maybe.” Tony agreed, vaguely.

“Cause we're – we're gonna need to figure out what to do, you know, when the kid's born, what our plan is, you know, raising them and everything, I mean... I should – I should come by the mansion, right?”

“Do what you want,” Tony said, and hung up.

He stared at his phone for a long moment, almost calling him back, then twisted, instead, and called, “Bartender? Another.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Everything seemed to change with Mary Jane's announcement. Tony was suddenly always in motion, always working at something, never still long enough to be pinned down to anything.

He finished the cradle he'd been building, set it up in the nursery attacked to his room, furnished the whole room – then got rid of every scrap of things he'd bought, and bought new ones. He did that at least three times, always finding something better, and the local Salvation Army was startled by all the donations of brand new, brand name baby things. He visited Mary Jane at least twice a week, always bringing her new things to make her life easier, better. He stopped drinking quite so much – at least as far as the other Avengers could tell – and threw himself into other strange pursuits instead. He tried to teach himself to cook, and it had damn near taken an intervention to get him to give up on that plan.

When Mary Jane had called to tell him that the most recent ultrasounds showed twins, he had whooped in joy and literally danced around the mansion.

He had a print out of the sonogram blown up for him, and pinned it up in the lab.

With sharpie, he'd scribbled on the print, little arrows pointing to two heads, one labeled “Iron Baby”, the other “Firefly”. Tony liked to show the picture to both Maggie and Joseph, and Maggie was starting to ask when Iron Baby and Firefly were coming home. Joseph would just stare at the picture in wide-eyed wonder, then declare, loudly, “Baby!”

Despite Tony's apparent manic swings, things seemed to be normal again. Sure, Tony never slept in his room, anymore, but he hadn't really done a lot of that before, either.

Things were settling back down again.

And then Mary Jane called Tony, panicked, at just over four months, because she was bleeding.

The photos that showed up in the news, the gossip rags, looked pretty awful. Tony was pale and drawn, eyes red rimmed and worried, one arm curled around Mary Jane's shoulders as he hurried her into the emergency room. She was very obviously pregnant, in the photos, even though it was only just over four months. That, doctors had said, calmly, was twins for you.

It had been a false alarm, Mary Jane and the babies were all fine, the doctors said. Healthy and growing, nothing to worry about.

But the photo, no matter how much Tony complained he looked like a mess in it, had been plastered across the news. THE REAL REASON STARK AND STORM BROKE UP? Some newspapers speculated. HEIR TO THE STARK FORTUNE, others said. The Daily Bugle, maybe prompted by a jealous or bitter Peter, declared, STARK CREATES A CLONE?

There was nothing for it, Pepper told Tony, tiredly. He would simply have to have a press conference. He had to explain. 

Dressed in one of his Italian suits, Tony fumbled with his tie, scowling as he paced the small room. Normally, he'd be relaxed somewhere – or trying to look relaxed – and probably hacking some satellite, somewhere, just to see what he found. But here he was, pacing anxiously, trying to not be too nervous. God, he was so nervous. He was even usually pretty  _good_ at this, dammit.

His phone rang in his pocket, and he tugged it out, answering without even looking at the screen. “Hello?”

“Tony?”

He hesitated, and let out all of the air in his lungs in one long whoosh, stunned. That was about the last person he'd expected to hear from. “...hey, Johnny.”

“Hey.” His ex... lover? Said, after a moment. “Sorry, I know it's been awhile, I’ve... I’ve just been trying to give you some space.”

“Yeah, no, that makes sense.” Tony nodded, gnawing at his lip. “I get that. Say, I ah... I heard you were dating that Jennifer chick, I – ah, I wanted to say congratulations.”

“Don't.” Johnny said, voice tight.

Tony closed his eyes. “Right, that was – well, that was a dickhead thing to say...”

“Yeah, it kinda was.” Johnny actually laughed, a breathless sound that didn't actually sound like he was actually enjoying himself. “Not that it matters, anyway, because that's what they say, it's not true. I’ve never gone on a date with Jennifer. I haven't really... I haven't dated anyone since... since you and I, ah... look, I’m calling cause of MJ. Is everything okay?”

A little insulted, Tony said, “I would have called you if the kids weren't okay, firefly.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, then Johnny said, quietly. “Yeah.”

He took a deep breath, and slumped to sit in the arm chair, and closed his eyes. “Johnny, look... listen to me. Maybe we should go for coffee. Maybe we should just... meet up, figure out a plan. I mean, we're having twins, right? So we should act like adults and... take care of the kids.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said, softly. “That sounds awesome, Tony.”

There was a knock at the door, and a young man he was pretty sure worked for him leaned in the doorway. “Tony? We're ready for you.”

“Shit, I ah – I gotta go,” he said, standing.

“Yeah, I know, I heard there's a press release,” The other said, softly, and Tony could imagine his old lover laying on his bed, like he always used to, holding the phone. In the background, he could very dimly hear the sounds of a television. “No pressure, but I’m watching you.”

“You watching actually makes me more nervous,” Tony laughed, and said, “I'll call you about coffee later, firefly.”

“...awesome.” Johnny said.

Tony shoved his phone back into his pocket, then headed out after the waiting intern, and out into the room that they were holding the press conference in. It was the lobby of the Stark Towers building, where they often held press conferences, all glass and stupid little potted plants, and he stepped up onto the raised platform that was at the front of the large space, and stepped behind the little lecturn. Smoothing down the front of his tie, he waited as the reporters seemed determined to take about a good dozen photos and a few even tried to shout out questions. He waited a moment, til they got the hint and calmed down, then arched a brow. 

“Well then,” Tony said, tugging his cue cards out of his inside pocket of his jacket. “We all know how good I am with these damn things, but... let's stick to the script for once, shall we?”

There was a polite smattering of laughter from the audience, and he nodded, patiently.

“There have been some rumours spreading lately, about an incident where I was seen with a woman at the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. No, she is not my girlfriend, yes, she is pregnant. And yes, the child is mine. I will be having a child.”

_That_ , as Tony had expected, got a reaction.

Reporters leapt up to their feet, shouting out questions as they did, holding out recorders and holding up cameras. Tony took a moment to just bask in the attention, feeling a bit more like himself, then straightened. “All right, one at a time, one at a time.”

“ _Is this why you and Johnny Storm broke up, because you cheated on him and got this woman pregnant_?”

Tony blinked. “...no. I didn't sleep with her.”

That got a scoffing, laughing reaction, and another woman reporter stood, calling, “ _Have you been dating this woman the whole time you were with Storm?_ ”

“As I said before, I have never slept with this woman. She's a surrogate.”

“ _So the child is a clone_?” A man called.

“...no, my child is not a _clone_ , except in the way that technically all children are partial clones of their parents, but no,” Tony shook his head, leaning on the lectern, “The child is not a clone. The child is just my child, you know?”

A blond that he was pretty sure he remembered from some one night stand, right when he was fresh out of college, stood, and said, “ _So, will you be marrying the mother of your child_ ?”

Tony slapped his palm against the lectern, and straightened. “Look, seriously.  _Seriously_ . I am not marrying the  _mother of my child_ , because she is just the woman  _carrying_ the baby. She is not the  _mother_ of the child. If you want to be technical, you could say that  _I_ am the mother of the child, because Johnny Storm is the father!”

For about ten seconds, there was silence. 

And then everything exploded again, louder and more chaotic than it had been even before, a thousand questions shouted at him at once, and he blinked, startled. “Ah... black haired woman with the purple suit...”

Said reporter held out her recorder, and said, firmly, “ _So you're saying that this child is the genetic offspring of yourself and Johnny Storm_ ?”

Tony sighed in relief, glad they finally understood that, and nodded. “Yeah, it's ours.”

“ _So_ you _are pregnant with your unborn child, then?”_

He blinked. “...what? No.”

“ _Is this why you've put on weight since the breakup?”_ Another man called, holding forward the recorder.

Bristling, Tony smoothed his jacket, compulsively. “Oi, I  _may_ have gained a little bit of weight in the last few months, but that was just a natural byproduct of  _stress_ , it is not because I am  _pregnant_ ...”

“ _Does your arc reactor pose a threat to the well being of the child_?” A woman that he was pretty sure he recognized as one of the women they had interviewed as a surrogate called. Damn, she was the reporter obsessed with “capes” and all the things that they did. 

“ _No_ , the arc reactor does not, because I am not actually - “

Before Tony could continue to explain, there was another question, shouted at him, and Tony started to realize that this press conference was  _very_ swiftly getting out of hand.

  
  


\---

  
  


Jan giggled, and poked Clint in the thigh with her toes. That may not be the most natural response, since they were out on the pool deck that was on a high balcony of the Avengers mansion on the deck chairs, but that was Jan for you. “Have you seen this article?”

“Ain't psychic, Wasp, I have no idea what you're talking about,” Clint said, calmly, not moving where he lay, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses.

“About Tony and the babies. Baby, actually, I don't think this magazine knows he's having twins, so I guess that's a level of secrecy there, or something... but anyway...” She tapped the page, wriggling a little on her stomach. “The article is about his pregnancy. They think _he's_ pregnant.”

That  _did_ get a reaction out of Clint. He lifted his glasses, and frowned. “I thought Bruce forbid him from getting pregnant.”

“He did.” Jan hesitated, and looked at him, sharply. “Do you think he actually _is_?”

“Naw.” Clint lowered his glasses again, relaxing back to the deck chair, then hesitated. “...except...”

“Except?”

“Well, he _has_ stopped drinking. And he _is_ getting kinda fat.”

Jan gasped. “God, maybe he  _is_ actually pregnant! Like, maybe MJ is just some kind of front or something...”

“Naw, MJ is definitely preggers.” Clint frowned. “God, maybe they're _both_ pregnant. Like, there's not _twins_ , they just both are preggers.”

“Oh god,” she shuddered. “But wait, Tony isn't a god, or magic, or anything...”

“Doesn't mean he wasn't cursed or magiced or secretly a hermaphrodite, or something.” Clint pointed out, shifting onto his side.

“But he's not _this_ pregnant,” she argued, holding the page up so that he could see the clearly photoshopped photo of Tony, rushing into the hospital. They had cropped Mary Jane out of the photo, and drawn it so that _Tony_ was the one that looked fairly pregnant, a rounded belly protruding from the jacket he'd just tugged on. “I mean, unless I really missed something major. But I’m pretty damn sure that if Iron Man was _this_ pregnant, we would have _noticed_ , right?”

Clint shifted up his glasses again, frowning at the page. “...fuck, yes, I think we would have.”

“Hm.” Jan frowned as she considered that, thoughtfully. “But Bruce really _did_ forbid him from allowing himself to get pregnant, so... I mean, I kinda doubt he is. I think it's what we thought it was, you know, with the surrogate and MJ carrying the baby, and everything.”

“...Loki would know, right?”

Jan's eyes lit up. “We should totally ask Loki.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Tony was pouring himself probably his fifth mug of coffee of the morning, sighing heavily as he sipped at it. That first moment of caffeine hitting his tongue made him groan, deeply, and he cupped his mug in his hands, pleased. “Mmm. Sweet, sweet, diesel fuel.”

“You have some issues with caffeine.” Natasha said, with a smirk. 

He started, blinking at her. “Woah, hey Tash, didn't know you were out here.”

She snorted, and shook her head. “Yeah, well... you don't seem to know a lot of things, lately. Have you seen the news? They're all sure that you're pregnant.”

Tony groaned, and rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, I noticed that. I watched the news. They cut off half of what I said... they never once mentioned that I had a surrogate, they completely forgot entirely about MJ, and they kept cutting off my comments themselves... the big ol'  _soundbyte of the year_ is '...that I’m pregnant'. They missed the ' _not that I’m pregnant_ ', which is what I actually said!”

“Yeah, I sorta caught that part.” She agreed, grinning at him. “Thought that was hilarious.”

“What, is this revenge for the whole wedding thing, in Vegas?” Tony abruptly twisted to face her properly, his hip resting on the lip of the counter. “Shit, by the way, I’m really sorry about that... I mean, I probably should have said this earlier or something, but I was as drunk as a skunk, I’m sorry... Pepper was right, I get ridiculously excited about ridiculously stupid things when I’m really drunk.”

“No, it's fine.” Natasha shook her head, pouring herself a mug. “Really.”

“...really?” He looked surprised.

She glanced at him over the lip of her mug, almost surprised, then shrugged with one shoulder. “Of course. It could have been far worse. As weddings go, I think it was actually quite fine, and there are a few photos that aren't bad. Besides, Tony, gay marriage isn't legal in Nevada, remember?”

“I had the guy use a New York marriage license,” Tony grinned at her.

Natasha hesitated for a moment. “Well, that does make things more  _interesting_ , but no, I don't mind. As messed up as that is, Stark, I actually got what you were going with, there. You really thought that someone else had to take care of her for you.”

He cleared his throat, not really wanting to admit to that vulnerability, and finally nodded.

“It's almost sweet,” she said, with a grin, then lifted her mug in greeting when Loki and Steve stepped into the kitchen. “Hello, boys. Fresh pot, if you want some.”

Steve sighed in relief, and headed for the counter. “Dearly, thank you, Natasha.”

“Oi, I _made_ the coffee,” Tony grumbled.

“And you shouldn't be drinking it when pregnant,” Loki grinned, tapping the side of Tony's mug.

“Fuck off, Loki.” He rolled his eyes.

“How in the world do they think that you're pregnant, anyway?” Steve asked, as he poured two mugs of coffee. “Are they not aware of the fact that you're just a _regular_ man?”

“I am _not_ a regular man,” Tony said, loftily.

“No, that's true.” Steve agreed, laughing softly. “But you're certainly not a god, or an alien, or whatever else might possibly have led to you being pregnant. Are they not aware, then, I suppose, that you are a normal, mortal man?”

“It's like they think that if Loki can have babies, then the rest of the Avengers should have babies,” Natasha rolled her eyes, shaking her head. 

“Exactly,” Tony shook his head, then swore when his phone rang in his pocket. “One minute...”

Slipping his phone out of his pocket, he blinked at the display, surprised to see a photo of Nick Fury glowering at him, and answered, holding the phone up to his ear as he slipped out from between Loki and Natasha, moving to the other side of the room. “Heya, Fury. What's going on?”

“Tony.” The other man said, and there was a moment of hesitation before he said, “So I just wanted to check on your need for paternity leave.”

He frowned, leaning on the wall as he sipped at his coffee. “Yeah, but I filled out those papers weeks ago, filed 'em with Coulson.”

“No... I mean, does _Iron Man_ need some paternity leave. I don't want to put your child at risk.”

Tony blinked for a long few moments, stunned, then abruptly said, “Just because I am going to be having a child does not mean that I need to  _stop being Iron Man_ ! I am not going to get myself in danger just because of – that's not even the point!”

Abruptly, Loki was plucking the phone from Tony's fingers, and he blinked at him, startled, as his best friend's husband said, “ _Director Fury_ ! Are you suggesting that a pregnant man cannot continue to wage war against the forces of evil?!”

“Loki, that is my phone.” Tony blinked at him.

Loki ignored him. “Being pregnant does not make one frail or weak!” He said, fiercely, into the phone. “I shall challenge your honour, you one-eyed tyrant, the gift of bearing a child makes a man  _stronger_ , not weak, you should celebrate it rather than threatening him! If you had one  _scrap_ of the integrity that the Man of Iron is displaying right now, then you would have fought for the fatherhood of your  _daughter_ !”

“Oh god,” Steve darted forward, trying to get the phone out of his husband's fingers. “Loki, you are going to create an international incident... _Loki_...”

“You are a terrible father,” Loki was telling the phone, angrily. 

“You made him sign over the _rights_ ,” Tony blinked, and tried to aide Steve in snatching the phone from him. “So of course he's a terrible father, Loki, give me back my _phone_ , that is our _boss_...”

“Loki, please...” Steve groaned, trying to grab it.

The god was very nimbly sidestepping both of their attempts to get the phone, and said, firmly, “Maggie doesn't need you anyway, Fury, you Midgardian Ogre.”

“That is my _boss_ , Loki!” Steve gasped.

“I take back everything I have ever said bad about you, Loki,” Tony said, grinning brightly, even though he was still trying to snag the phone from his fingers. “You are my absolute favourite, ever. You are my favourite ever, better even than Thor. You have balls of _steel_ , Loki.”

“Never again will you imply that the Man of Iron cannot care for his own younglings!” Loki snapped, listened for a moment, then said, “Fine,” and thrust the phone back at Tony.

He lifted the phone to his ear for a moment, and said, “Yeah?”

“Despite those _dramatics_ , I just thought you'd like... more time to prepare. If you need more time, let me know.” Fury said, firmly.

Tony snorted, and said, “Yeah, sure, Fury.”

Natasha was laughing as she leaned on the counter, knees apparently weak as she shook with mirth, wiping at her eyes. “Son of a bitch, this is better than any soap opera... you are fucking  _hilarious_ .”

Steve groaned, heavily, and ran his hand through his hair. “ _Loki_ , you threatened to castrate him if he  _didn't_ sign his rights over.”

“He should have fought for her!” Loki said, furiously, arms crossed as he glowered at empty space. “She is a beautiful baby, she deserves to have been fought for. He should have made more of an effort to gain custody of his child. I do _not_ like that man.”

“Yeah, but Steve would have, like, fought him to the death.” Tony rolled his eyes. “For the rights of his baby girl.”

Natasha pushed off of the counter, and snickered. “Yeah, exactly, it was really just smart of him to not fight. I mean, Steve  _would_ have fought him to the death, everyone knows that, Captain America is all about the saving of everyone, and you know what he's like with Maggie, she's his baby. C'mon, Loki, it's what he does.”

“If he calls you again, for the record,” Steve grumbled, “I don't want you to talk to him, Loki. I don't like it when you talk to him.”

Loki grinned, stepping closer to his husband, looping his arms slowly around his neck. “But I do so love when you get all jealously possessive...”

Tony blinked, as he flicked through some of the things on his phone, looking up at them. “Steve, you  _do_ know that Loki didn't actually sleep with Fury, right? He didn't actually sleep with half of the people that could have been Maggie's dad.”

“I don't like when he - “ Steve started again.

“Tony _is_ actually right.” Loki pointed out, glancing at Stark. “He's a one-eyed man with an anger problem. This reminds me perhaps a _little_ too strongly of my father, Odin. They're rather alarmingly similar.”

Steve just grumbled slightly, holding his husband close, not really wanting Loki to talk to Fury on a regular basis, whether he'd slept with him or not. “...and he's not really a bad father, anyway. He sends cards, and presents, and... every birthday, I send him pictures of her birthday parties. Maybe he doesn't have his rights to her or anything, anymore, but he isn't... actually... a bad dad.”

Loki frowned. “Hn. Maggie still deserved an epic battle.”

“I'm sure she did,” Tony grinned, patting his shoulder, grinning.

Loki twisted in Steve's arms, and grinned up at Tony, smirking. “For the record, I meant to point this out, earlier. I meant to give you congratulations on the impending birth of your child. I look forward to seeing you swell with your young.”

“Not you too,” Tony groaned, heavily. “I am _not_ pregnant.”

Natasha burst into laughter again, and pointed out, “Well, you  _are_ getting a little fat, Tony.”

“I am _not_!” He yelped, displeased.

  
  


\---

  
  


Tony opened the lab door, mostly just wanting to avoid thinking about all of this, trying to get away from all of this stress and being accused of being pregnant, and blinked at how dark the room was. “JARVIS? Lights.”

The lights didn't turn on.

“JARVIS?” He said again, closing the door behind him, and stepping further into the room. “JARVIS, turn the light on.”

The light abruptly flared on, as did a holographic “banner” of sorts, that read, in big block letters,  _CONGRATULATIONS TONY_ . Dummy and the other bots waved their robotic arms and whistled, and Johnny's little fire-extinguishing bot whistled and weaved through them, and JARVIS said, cheerfully, “Congratulations, sir! We wanted you to have a proper little response from us. After all, you made us, and we will live to serve your children as much as we live to serve you.”

“Well, I hope you do a little better with them than you do with me,” Tony snickered, and patted the top of the fire extinguisher boy's 'head'. 

“The bots took the liberty of procuring a gift for you... we used your Mastercard, so you'll know which bill it was on, later.” JARVIS said, calmly, and it was Dummy that happily tugged a tarp off of a large stack of plastic bottles of high grade, racing fuel motor oil. “They were sure, that with a child, you would need a lot of this.”

Tony laughed, almost in tears, and smiled at them. “Thank you.  _Thank you_ .”

  
  


\---

  
  


“Hey, MJ.”

“Johnny!” Mary Jane looked up with a bright smile at the man standing in her doorway, and opened the door wider. “C'mon in.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he grinned, and slipped into her apartment, setting a box of pizza on the table, and thumping down a plastic bag beside it. “I got you some apple pie. And some pizza pie. Pies for the eating.”

“Awesome, I’ve been craving pepperoni,” she grinned, lifting the top of the box to peer inside, and tugged out a slice of cheesy pizza, taking a bite. “Mmm... go ahead, grab a seat or something, and some pizza, obviously, since you brought it for me...”

“Sure,” Johnny grinned, grabbing a slice of pizza himself, and headed into the little living room, flopping on the couch. “What are you _watching_?”

“Sesame Street,” she grinned, settling down on the other end of the couch. She was starting to look heavily pregnant, even though there were still a few months left to go, but that was because of the twins, who seemed bound and determined to make the woman carrying them look as big as humanly possible. 

“...trying to teach the little ones early, or...?”

“Nope,” she reached forward to grab the remote, turning the tv up. “Watch.”

He continued munching on his pizza as he watched, seeing Elmo sing about picking up his room, watching a little letter “L” sing about being a rebel, then, as he was crunching on the crust, he let out a yelp, and gaped at the screen. “Woah!”

“I know, right?” Mary Jane laughed.

“Why do some people do bad things, Iron Man?” Elmo was asking, sweetly on the television screen.

“Sometimes people do bad things because they're unhappy,” Iron Man was saying, voice low and rough as he spoke through the voice modulator on the suit. “Sometimes people have a bad day, or have no friends, or want something that someone else has, and they do mean things. They're just bullies.”

“What should we do about mean people?” Elmo asked, then tried to do some kind of crazy kung fu move. “Do we beat them up like you do?!”

“Nope. You do something even better.” Iron Man leaned closer to him, and said, “Be kind to them.”

“Kind to them?” Elmo repeated.

Johnny roared in laughter as he slumped back into his seat. “Iron Man is teaching the kids how to defeat  _bullies_ ?!”

“Yep,” she grinned, nibbling on her second piece of pizza. “It's a special Avengers episode.”

He snickered, shaking his head. “Well, this is a hell of a lot better than my 'It Gets Better' commercial was...”

Mary Jane laughed aloud, and said, “You told the kids to fuck the haters!”

“And I meant it!” He said, laughing as he leaned forward to snag another piece. “Fuck the haters. In a few years, those brats will realize that the gay kids are more successful, more adjusted, and far happier than they are.” 

“Sure, Johnny.” She laughed, and shook her head.

Grinning, Johnny settled back on the couch to watch Captain America teaching Big Bird about tolerance, and Hawkeye helped Grover and Telly count to twenty-five using arrows as counters. He laughed as he watched, eagerly, shaking his head, like he couldn't quite believe that someone had actually managed to get them  _on_ the show. He kept laughing, picking fun at the screen until abruptly he hesitated. 

Tony, out of the armour, was on the screen, sitting between Bert and Ernie's beds as he read them a bedtime story, some silly little story that someone had written for him to read, about a little boy that was counting the stars. He glanced up at the screen at one moment, and smiled happily as though he thought that Johnny was watching.

Mary Jane smiled faintly as she watched Johnny, staring at the screen. “Johnny?”

He started, and looked over at her, startled. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m awesome.” He grinned, flushed. “Sorry. So... how are you doing, anyway? You're looking pretty, ah... no offense or nothing, but round.”

Mary Jane snorted, and patted her stomach, quietly. “Yeah... three and a bit months to go, if I go to full term, though the doctors say that I probably won't go full term, they say twins don't usually do that, especially when they're as big as these little ones are. I mean, I look like I’m eight and a half months along, already.”

“I'm looking forward to that,” he admitted, watching her, quietly.

“You wanna touch?” Mary Jane grinned.

“ _Yes_ ,” he said, immediately, and leaned over to press his fingers to her belly, quietly, eyes lighting up as he felt sure that he felt a kick under her skin. “Woah!”

“Yeah, they're pretty active,” she laughed, grinning at him. “They like kicking.”

Johnny snickered, pleased. “Felt any shockingly hot flares of anything inside, or...?”

“No, no indication of super powers.” Mary Jane laughed. “But they've got time. A few months.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “They got time.”

Mary Jane squeezed his fingers, gently. “You're gonna be a great dad, Johnny.”

“Thanks.” He smiled, then took a deep breath. “But speaking of time, I probably better get going. I got this whole Charity Ball thing that's supposed to be going on tonight that I’m trying to avoid, so I gotta get back to the Baxter Building.”

“If you're trying to avoid the Ball, wouldn't it make more sense to stay here?” Mary Jane laughed.

“No way, my sister's managed to figure out that if I’m not in the Baxter Building, I’m here, so if she can't find me for this ball, naturally, she's going to be looking for me here. And hell, if it were a Charity Rave, or something, I’d probably be there, but balls... ain't really my thing. I’m not a ball type of guy. So I gotta get going.”

“But wouldn't they think to look for you in the Baxter Building, too?” she pointed out.

“Naw, if I’m avoiding them, that is the _last_ place I’d be going.” He laughed, and kissed the top of her head as he leaned over the couch, then said, “I'll talk to you later, okay, hun?”

“Sure,” she smiled, and patted her belly. “I'm gonna keep watching cartoons, see if any of it sinks through to get to the babies.”

Johnny snorted. “Good luck with that.” 

“You too, Johnny.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Tony had a flute of champagne in his hands as he drifted through the crowd, greeting acquaintances and nodding at strangers that recognized him, sipping at the champagne every once in a while. Charity Balls were normally not his thing, even if they were run by the Stark Foundation, usually Pepper took care of these things. 

And Pepper was here, he was pretty sure, somewhere amongst the crowd, Natasha at her side and posing as her assistant, beautiful women encouraging people to donate to their charity. 

He was pretty sure they were good at it.

He hummed as he sipped at his champagne, then hesitated when he realized that he recognized the back of one of the women among the crowd, wearing a low backed blue dress that seemed to shimmer and glitter in the light, blonde curls twisted in a elegant style. Stepping closer to the woman, Tony said, quietly, “Sue?”

She turned to face him, her bright blue eyes lighting up. “Ah! Tony... a pleasure.”

“Sue Storm,” he smiled, offering her his hand. “Been a long time.”

“About seven and a half months,” she agreed, shaking his hand, delicately, smiling. “Almost eight. Time sure flies, doesn't it?”

“It does.” Tony agreed, awkwardly, then hesitated. “Is Johnny here?”

“He was supposed to be,” she snorted, shaking her head. “But he seemed to manage to avoid me when it came time to go... you would think _he_ was the invisible one, rather than me.”

He laughed, awkwardly, and sort of shifted. Normally he was able to make small talk, easily, but this was a little more difficult than he'd figured. If he had realized that it was going to be  _quite_ this awkward, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't have approached his ex-lovers older sister and tried to talk to her. “How's he been doing?”

Sue smiled softly, looking down. “He's doing... better.”

“He wasn't?”

“No,” she laughed, shaking her head. “He really wasn't. He's been struggling, a lot. But I think Logan really got through to him.”

“Logan?” Tony repeated, surprised.

“Yeah, about a week after he got back to the Baxter Building, he showed up, and really got through to him. He hauled him up, and threw him in the shower, which after a week of not leaving _bed_ , he really needed, and told him that... that he was an Avenger, so he'd better act like one.”

“Oh.” Tony murmured, quietly. “I didn't know he did that.”

“I'm not sure he planned on anyone knowing that he was doing it,” Sue laughed, softly, shaking her head. “But it really... shook him up. He starting thinking, I guess.”

“Oh,” he said again, quietly, and was silent for a long few moments, staring down into his champagne.

“So... how are the babies and Mary Jane?” Sue asked, smiling faintly.

Glad to have  _something_ to talk about other than Johnny, he grinned, and said, “They're great, they're really great. Things are going well. How's Franklin?”

Sue smiled, genuinely happy, and he remembered why a lot of people had cried when she'd married Reed – and not just because they cried at weddings. She was  _stunning_ . “Franklin's doing really well, Tony, thanks for asking. Johnny spends a lot of time with him... which has  _some_ unfortunate side effects, as I’m fairly sure I caught my son talking about  _haters_ the other day, but...”

Tony snorted. “Sorry, that was, ah... shit.”

“Yes, I know, fairly amusing.” Sue smiled at him, and said, gently, “I'm glad to hear that you're doing well, Tony.”

He cleared his throat, and nodded. “Thanks, Sue, you too.”

Sue smiled faintly, and they stood there, facing each other for a few long moments, neither really sure what to say, then Tony abruptly said, “I'm gonna go see about some more champagne.”

“Yes, that – it's good to see you, Tony.” She said, clearly as relieved for a distraction as he was.

“You too, Sue,” he nodded, and darted off into the crowd, choosing to not pay attention to the fact that his champagne was still half full. Tony drifted through the crowd for a long time, just sort of aimlessly wandering, talking to a few people, but mostly just watching. At one point, he found himself drifting nearer to a fairly large, fairly animated group of people that was gathered, and stepped closer, curiously. 

“All I’m saying,” One of the party goers, one of the New York senators, was speaking, loudly, boisterously. “Is that there are some major reforms that need to be pushed through, in New York legislation. There are too many liberties being taken with American values.”

“Liberties?” One woman asked, sipping at her glass.

“Well, look at the state of things! Captain America, who is _supposed_ to represent our nation to the world, supposed to represent our values, he is married to a _man_! How does _that_ represent American values?”

Tony, who had been about to walk away, doubled back, startled. “What was  _that_ ?” He demanded, brows furrowed.

The senator looked surprised by his interruption, then his face lit up, and he waved at Tony, looking around at the group. “You see? This is a perfect example of my point. Tony is a perfect example of this. He was making a mistake, he has been making a mistake for a very long time. But he learned the  _error_ of his  _ways_ , and he's doing what's right, now. He's with a woman, now, planning a family with her, now. Tony Stark has done a service to the American people by turning himself around, and going to a natural relationship.”

Stunned, he blinked at the man. “Natural.”

“Yes, with a _woman_.” The senator said, grinning like a loon. “Well done, Tony Stark. Well done.”

“Wait.” Tony held up a hand, and said, “So you would rather that I knock up a woman I barely know, because she was a _woman_ , than if I had a child with a man that I had been with in a committed relationship for years.”

“Yes.” The man laughed, shaking his head. “Of course.”

Tony shook his head. “You know that Steve and Loki's relationship, their marriage, is entirely legal in this state, don’t you?”

“Not for long, if I can help it.” The senator grinned, broadly.

He frowned, considering the man for a long moment, then knocked back the last of his champagne in a single swallow, and said, “Excuse me,” before he stepped back, tugging his phone out of his pocket, and dialing, immediately. “Happy. Yeah. I need the car.  _Now_ . Out front.”

A few moments later, Tony slid into the back seat of the car, scowling.

Happy twisted to face him. “Where are we going?”

“The Baxter Building.”

His driver blinked, then said, finally, “The  _Baxter_ Building. Where Johnny Storm lives...?”

“I'm aware of what the Baxter Building is, Happy.” Tony arched a brow, typing rapidly on the screen of his phone, frowning. “Go. Wait... I need to make a stop, first. Then the Baxter Building.”

“Of course. Right.” 

  
  


\---

  
  


With his hands in his pockets, Tony rocked on the balls of his feet as the elevator rose story after story, glancing around the detailed little gold details in the elevator, humming. When the doors opened on the penthouse level of the building, Tony stepped out of the elevator, and hollered, “ _Johnny_ ?”

Silence met his call, and he shook his head, then called again, “Johnny? You here?”

One of the doors at the end of the hall opened, and Johnny stepped out of the room, wearing only a pair of jeans and looking absolutely confused. “ _Tony_ ?”

“Hey.” He took a deep breath, then smiled, crookedly, “You missed the Charity Ball tonight.”

“Uh... yeah, I did.” He scratched the back of his jaw, looking a little confused. “We used to skip those things all the time, you actually thought that I’d be there?”

“No, of course not,” Tony shook his head, and headed closer to him, hands still stuffed deep in his pockets. “But I was there, for some stupid reason, anyway, I was there, and there was this senator. Real dickhead, probably drunk, and he was having this rant. About how unnatural it is for two men to be together, how awful it was that Captain America is married to a man.”

“Wow.” Johnny blinked. “Hater.”

“Yeah, I know, right?” He shook his head, again, and stepped a little closer again. “Fuck the haters. Anyway, he was having this rant, and he said that if he got his way, gay marriage wouldn't be legal anymore. Which, naturally, pissed me the _fuck_ off. So.” 

Tony tugged a small black box out of his pocket, and dropped down onto his right knee, cracking it open. Inside was a massive silver ring with several embedded diamonds in it, and he grinned up at Johnny. 

“Marry me?”

Johnny blinked at him. “...you want me to marry you to piss of a dickhead senator that got drunk at a party?”

“Yep,” Tony said, looking up at him.

The expression in his eyes wasn't just 'we're playing a fine joke here, aren't we?', which was an expression he recognized well enough in Tony's eyes. But the look in his eyes  _was_ familiar. It was the same look Tony had given him the time that Johnny had unexpectedly flown out to Los Angeles when Tony had been out there for a conference for a week and he'd surprised him, waiting on Tony's bed for him to come back from the day of meetings. It was the same look Tony had given him when he'd handed Johnny that silly little fire-extinguishing robot that he'd made him for his birthday. It was the same look that he remembered when Tony had stumbled out of his lab just before his forty-fifth birthday, gripped his arms tightly, and said that he wanted to have children with him. 

Johnny abruptly thrust out his left hand. “Sure, why not?”

Tony laughed, and tugged the ring out of the box, sliding it onto Johnny's finger with a grin, then stood up, groaning. “I am getting too old for this shit.”

“Better not, we'll be picking up a lot of kids,” he snickered, and abruptly grabbed Tony's tie, tugging him forward as he kissed him, firmly. 

He sighed, pleased, and looped a single arm around Johnny's shoulders, holding him against his chest as he kissed him back, after way too long, nipping at the younger man's lower lip. Finally, he slowly drew back, his forehead pressing against Johnny's, and said, “ _Damn_ , that was worth it.”

Johnny snorted, and considered his left hand. “Holy  _shit_ , Tony, could you have got a bigger, blingier ring?”

“Naw, not really. I went into the jewelery story and asked for the biggest, most sparkly engagement ring they had for a man. Only there weren't really any... turns out there's a massive hole in the market there for engagement rings for men. I really ought to step in and do that.”

“You think there's a huge market for it?” Johnny snickered.

“Well, there's you, and Steve and Loki will totally renew their vows someday in the future, and I dunno, maybe Cyclops will pull his head out of his ass and dump the redheaded bitch, and ask Logan to marry him, or something...”

The blond snorted, and kissed Tony again, firmly. “So are we gonna tell everyone?”

“Eventually,” he muttered, slipping his fingers just into the waistband of Johnny's jeans, tugging slightly on them. “After we set a record. I am fully intending to have enough sex tonight to make Loki blush.”

Johnny laughed. “Is that  _possible_ ?”

“I dunno.” He grinned, and tugged on Johnny's jeans again. “That's an excellent experiment, firefly. How about we have sex until Loki starts to blush?”

“And if he doesn't?” He snickered.

“Then we just keep trying until he does.” Tony started walking backwards, tugging Johnny along by the waistband of his jeans. “Now, all your shit is still at my place, so we don't need to pack anything, we just need to get you in the damn car, and get you back to the mansion, and we are going to get you screaming. As many times as possible. If we're lucky, we'll get you an orgasm before Happy even gets us back to the mansion.”

“If we're _lucky_?” Johnny arched a brow. “I dunno, for a diamond this big, I probably owe you, I dunno, at least fifteen blow jobs. _You're_ getting lucky, Mister Stark.”

“...I should have thought of diamonds years ago.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“Isn't it Tony's birthday today?”

Bruce looked up from his breakfast, some kind of hot cereal, and frowned, thoughtfully. Doing some quick mental math, he whistled, and said, “It is.”

Natasha frowned, then stabbed her eggs. “Funny, I haven't heard him say anything about it. Last year he had that huge party, and this year... nothing. Think he forgot, in the mess of everything that's happening?”

“Possible,” Bruce shrugged.

“Hm.” She considered that, then shrugged. “Well, he does tend to have some rather ridiculous plans, maybe he's waiting to spring some huge surprise on us, or something, instead.”

“He would, too.” 

Johnny padded barefoot into the kitchen, yawning as he headed to the coffee machine, pouring himself a mug of the strong java, and sipped at the mug, groaning softly. He was wearing only a pair of light blue flannel pyjama pants, and leaned on the counter as he yawned, and took another deep pull of the coffee. “Morning.”

“Morning,” Bruce dipped his head at him, then stopped. “ _Johnny_?”

The blond blinked at him. “Yeah... that's my name. What's up?”

Natasha twisted in her seat, gaping at him. “What are you doing here?”

“...drinking coffee?” He said, slowly.

“Yeah, but... holy _shit_.” Bruce's eyes widened, and he set his spoon down. “Well then. _That_ was unexpected.”

“What was?” Natasha demanded, confused. 

Bruce waved at Johnny. “Look at his left hand!”

Johnny grinned, and held it up, to help.

The redhead's eyes widened. “That is probably the largest diamond I have ever seen set into a ring in my  _life_ . Tony... did Tony  _seriously_ ask you to marry him?”

“Mmhmm,” Johnny shrugged, and sipped at his coffee again. “Yep.”

Natasha blinked. “...congratulations.”

“Thank you,” he dipped his head, grinning behind the rim of his cup. “I'm kinda looking forward to it. We're gonna piss off some senators. It sounds like fun.”

“...so this is how Tony's celebrating his forty-sixth?” Bruce groaned, shaking his head. “How is gonna top this for forty-seven?”

“Forty... crap.” Johnny set his mug aside, and groaned. “I gotta run. I completely forgot. See you later.”

Bruce and Natasha watched him dart out of the room, then Bruce looked at her, and said, “Well, that was certainly unexpected.”

“Yeah. Dammit, Clint won the pool.”

“I know,” Bruce grumbled. “I had my money on Christmas.”

  
  


\---

  
  


Maggie was dancing in circles in the living room, skipping as she looped circles around the sofa, swinging a battered stuffed Hulk doll by its hand, singing. Music was playing in the air as she skipped, and JARVIS' distinctive voice sang along with her as she did. 

“ _Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green. When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen_...”

A little holographic, mostly see-through winged pony trotted around the coffee table, tossing its mane and tail. Maggie laughed in delight, and wiggled and shimmied in front of the little holographic pegasus, laughing when it tried very hard to imitate her wriggling, rear end swinging as it did. She clapped her hands, swinging the little Hulk doll, then stamped her feet, and went back to dancing and singing. As she did, she looped around the couch, and the pony followed her, then a little holographic song bird and a holographic bunny rabbit, so that it looked like she was leading an animal parade. 

“ _Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so? Was my own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so_.”

“Heya, miss Maggie.”

Maggie paused in her dancing, and looked up, eyes lighting up. “Unca Johnny!”

Johnny grinned, and crouched, holding out his arms. “C'mere.”

Squealing, she raced forward, and threw herself into his chest, and Johnny laughed as he picked her up, and swung her around. Tony laughed as he leaned in the doorframe, watching them, grinning. “You came back, uncle Johnny! I missed you! We hasn't played Rocket Football even  _once_ since you went away!”

“Well, I’m back, miss Maggie, pumpkin, and I’m not going anywhere,” he grinned, bouncing her. 

“Are you gonna bring Iron Baby and Firefly home, soon, then?”

Johnny blinked, and glanced over at Tony. 

Tony grinned, crookedly, and shrugged. “Yeah, those are the nicknames we've given the babies. I figure, they don't have names yet, so...”

“God, we'll need to work on that,” Johnny shook his head, and bounced Maggie for another moment, grinning at her. “So you've been playing with JARVIS, huh?”

“Uh huh,” she agreed, nodding. “JARVIS is awesome to play with. I like JARVIS.”

“Me too,” he grinned, and bumped his forehead against hers, lightly. “JARVIS is awesome, huh?”

Maggie nodded, eagerly. “Only JARVIS doesn't play Rocket Football.”

“True,” he laughed, and let Maggie down. “Okay, miss Maggie, how about this. On the weekend, when you're not having to worry about school, Tony and me, we'll play some Rocket Football with you, okay?”

“Okay!” She laughed, eagerly, and darted to hug Tony's leg, tightly. “Thank you, uncle Tony.”

Tony laughed, and ruffled her hair. “What are you thanking me, for?”

Maggie looked up at him, smiling happily, and said, “For being happy, again.”

He flushed, and cleared his throat.

“Your uncle Tony is going to be happy, now, okay?” Johnny smiled at her, and nodded at the toys scattered on the floor. “But JARVIS is waiting for you, he wants to play.”

“Yes, miss Maggie,” JARVIS said, cheerfully. “We were going to sing about the frog that was going a'courting.”

Maggie laughed, swinging her Hulk doll, and darted back to clamber on the couch. “ _A frog he would a wooing go, hmm-hmm..._ ”

Tony hooked his arm through Johnny's, and tugged him out of the room, smirking.

“Our kids are gonna be like Maggie, right?” Johnny grinned as he leaned on Tony's shoulder, pleased. 

“Oh fuck yes.”

  
  


\---

  
  


“About fucking _time_!” Mary Jane yelled, and laughed when she threw her arms around the pair of them, shaking as she pressed her face into Johnny's collarbone. “ _Fuck_!”

“You're swearing in front of the children again, MJ,” Tony laughed, almost breathlessly.

“They're inside of me, shut up, I’m allowed to swear all I want. No one said I had to avoid swearing while I was pregnant, it wasn't in the contract.”

Johnny hugged her, tightly, and murmured, “Thanks, MJ.”

“But _seriously_.” She finally leaned back, shaking her head. “Seriously! You've been beating around the bush forever, fuck, you two are the most... the most problematic stubborn _men_ I’ve ever met in my life! And this!” Mary Jane grabbed Johnny's left hand, and brandished his hand at Tony. “About _time_ you two declared that you're in a relationship!”

Tony rolled his eyes. “All right, MJ, seriously, calm down. It's just a ring.”

“It's a ring that finally says 'yes, we're a _couple_ '.”

Johnny snorted, and ruffled Mary Jane's hair, smiling at her. “Well, that is  _new_ , MJ. We weren't in a relationship before. I mean, there was no faithfulness or monogamy or anything, because we weren't actually  _together_ ...”

Tony blinked, and glanced at him. “...we weren't monogamous?”

“No,” he grinned at him, then hesitated. “...were we?”

Mary Jane arched a brow.

“...you were sleeping with other people?” Tony crossed his arms, frowning as he did.

“Well... _no_ , actually, I wasn't, but you were!”

“No, I wasn't.” Tony threw up his hands. “Except for like... threesomes and stuff. No, I wasn't sleeping with anyone else. I mean, I know we didn't _call_ it anything, but we were together for five years. _Five_. You lived with me. I made you a _robot_.”

“Well, yeah, but...”

“Have I made a robot for anyone _else_?” Tony demanded.

Johnny opened his mouth, then closed it.

“Exactly.” He muttered.

“Yeah, but...” Johnny fumbled again. “You said, over and over, that it... it _wasn't_ a relationship.”

“Because I wreck relationships!” Tony protested, slightly flushed. “But _this_... this was more than I’d ever had before. If it was nothing, this wouldn't have _hurt_ so much.”

“I love you.” Johnny blurted out.

Tony blinked at him, surprised.

Mary Jane flushed, and ducked back out of their way, wanting to give them some space to talk.

“....what was that?” Tony asked, looking stunned.

Johnny took a deep breath, and said, “I  _love_ you. Fuck. I’ve been trying not to say that for five years. I sorta thought... I mean... you said what we had  _wasn't_ a relationship. So I kinda figured I was the only one feeling that way, and... this is not going the way I pictured it. At all. Yeah, doesn't sound like one of those awesome romance novels or anything, does it? It kinda sounds like... like I’m a  _moron_ . But I really thought that... you know... this would all be so much easier, if we weren't... I mean, if this was just a fling, or something, then it didn't have to hurt so much.”

“...you are the biggest idiot on the planet,” Tony shook his head, thumping his forehead onto Johnny's chest.

“...thanks, but again, that... wasn't actually the reaction I was expecting...”

“Fuck, you are such an idiot,” Tony laughed, and reached up to cup Johnny's jaw, kissing him firmly. “You stupid, beautiful, fucking idiot. I sort of just thought we didn't have to _say_ it.”

“Woah, woah, I’m not the only one thinking this?!” Johnny asked, startled. “Oh _hell_ no, if _I_ gotta say it, _you_ gotta say it!”

“...I think that might be fighting dirty,” Tony pouted.

“ _Say it_...”

“I bought you a huge diamond, isn't that enough?” He pointed out. 

“ _Say it_...” Johnny grinned, wriggling. “Say it, and I’ll let you fuck me over the drafting table again...”

“I'm doing to do that _anyway_...” Tony pointed back, sort of sing songy, and kissed him firmly, almost teasingly. 

“Yeah, but I’ll wear the garter and stockings.” Johnny grinned.

“ _Fuck_. I _love_ you,” Tony said, firmly, and curled his arms around Johnny's shoulders again before kissing him desperately, possessively. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“...you know what I _don't_ miss?”

Steve looked up, frowning slightly. “What don't you miss, Clint?”

“Walking in on Tony and Johnny having sex absolutely _everywhere_.” He groaned, slumping into his seat at the table. “They were having sex in the lab. Again. And this time Johnny was wearing stocking and garters!”

The captain blinked, and pursed his lips for a moment. “Interesting idea.”

“Oh god, Cap, not you _too_...” 

“Just _thinking_!”

  
  


\---

  
  


“I can't believe I am planning _your_ wedding.” Pepper grumbled.

Tony looked up from the magazine he was reading, which was covered, from what he could tell, with women in wedding dresses. “Oi, I’ve giving you ideas.”

“Your idea was 'I’m gonna marry Johnny'. That was the entirety of your idea.” She said, firmly. 

He hesitated, and glanced back at the magazine he was holding. “...I like Tiffany blue?”

“God, Tiffany blue is so incredibly overdone, at least do royal blue or something.” Pepper sighed, and tapped her pen on the paper in front of her. 

“Hey, I did a good job planning _your_ wedding!”

“You got drunk in Vegas and decided that I should marry Natasha Romanov, of all people, and there we go, I was married. In a state where gay marriage _isn't_ legal, I might add.”

“New York marriage license,” he grinned. 

“Yes, I’m aware, I did sign the thing,” Pepper shook her head, tapping her pen on the paper, again. “But you _should_ be planning your own wedding. Hell, Loki planned his and Steve's himself, he didn't need me to plan all of it.”

“Yes, well... Pepper, darling... you're a genius at this sort of thing!” 

She rolled her eyes, and said, “But the entire guest list you've given me so far is 'The Avengers and the dickhead homophobic senator'.”

“...those are the important people?” He pointed out.

“Right then.” Pepper considered that for a moment, then glanced down at her sheet. “So when are you hoping to do this, then?”

“...next weekend?”

Her brows arched, and Pepper glanced down at the page. “Right. Well then, I had best pull some strings, haven't I?” She reached for her phone, then hesitated, hand resting on the reciever. “Tony... I just wanted to say, for the record... that I’m very happy to see you... well. Back to yourself. I know Johnny meant a lot to you - “

“I love him.” He interrupted her, grinning like a moron. 

Pepper paused, surprised by that, then smiled wider, pleased. “Well... that's good. That's... that's  _really_ good, Tony, I’m glad to hear that. I’m happy to see you back to yourself, and I’m relieved that you're back with Johnny. Maybe your relationships with women crashed and burned because you were waiting for a man, this whole time.”

Tony scoffed. “I slept with men too, Pep. Maybe it's just Johnny.”

“Maybe it is,” she agreed.

  
  


\---

  
  


“Gen-er-all-y...” Johnny groaned as he arched, pressing his forehead to the blankets, fingers fisted in the sheets, “Aren't we sup – supposed to leave this for... mmm... _after_ the wedding?”

“Fuck that,” Tony grinned, licking at the side of Johnny's neck, catching sweat on his tongue.

The blond groaned deeply, and bucked, biting his lip. “Fuck!”

“That _is_ the idea, yeah,” he laughed, rocking his hips as he worked on fucking his very soon husband-to-be's ass, loving the way that his fiance shifted and groaned and panted beneath him, spine arching as he pressed back against him. Tony was mostly dressed in his suit, the pants just shoved down enough to work with, his bowtie loose as it hung around his neck, his jacket unbuttoned, so that the jacket itself actually hung around Johnny like some sort of curtain. Under him, Johnny was most definitely naked, biting his lower lip as he pushed at the carpet with his bare toes, trying to brace himself over the foot board of the bed. 

“Come on, Tony...” Johnny groaned, licking his lips. 

“Heh... you've gotten out of practice, huh?” Tony grinned, nipping at his fiance's throat, bracing himself over his lover's back.

“Fuck. Yes.” He bucked, pressing back into Tony. “ _And_ we're needed for the whole... fuck... _wedding_...”

“They can do most of it without us,” Tony grinned, rolling his hips.

Johnny let out a breathy cry, clutching desperately at the blankets. “Fuck! No they...  _fuck_ ... they can't, we're the ones getting  _married_ , Tony...”

“Good point, firefly,” he smirked, and slid the fingers of his left hand down Johnny's stomach, between his skin and the blankets, and curled his fingers around his fiance's prick, stroking him slowly, almost teasingly.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Johnny let out another of those breathy little cries, the ones that Tony had been afraid that he'd never hear again and had realized, during the eight months they'd been apart, that he _desperately_ needed. “Son of a bitch, Tony, _please_...”

“All right, guess we better get onto the actual wedding bit,” he grinned, and stroked faster, firmly, still thrusting into Johnny. A few moments later, he could feel the muscular thighs pressing against his tightened, then his fiance came in his hand, messily, letting out another of those breathless cries as he did, and Tony kissed the back of his neck. Johnny whimpered, and went still for a moment, then groaned, and said, “Okay, um... _mm_. C'mon, Tony... your turn.”

“Sure thing,” he smirked, gripping his hips, tightly, then kept thrusting, until he finally came, hard, groaning.

For a long few moments, they stayed there together, a sticky, sweaty mess, Johnny flopped on his stomach on the sticky sheets, and Tony on top of him, panting hard as he rested heavily on top of his lover. Finally, Johnny murmured, “...if we're going to be getting married, though, he probably shouldn't be laying here being all sticky.”

“...technically,” Tony groaned softly, and reluctantly pulled back, wincing slightly as he tucked himself back into his pants. 

“Nnngh, I guess I should put some clothes on.” Johnny rolled reluctantly off of the bed, and padded over to the closet, where his suit was hanging, and started reluctantly tugging his clothes back on. “Is it normal to spend your wedding itself with a sore ass?”

“No, it's better. It's _perfect_. Fuck normal.” He grinned, and stepped over to press his lips to his temple. “Get dressed.”

“I'm getting dressed, I’m getting dressed. Funny how you're the one trying to hurry all this up now, a minute before, you didn't want to be hurrying, you wanted to be having slow sex.” Johnny grinned at him, and tugged on his shirt, working on doing up the buttons. 

“Yeah, well... the groom isn't supposed to see the bride before the wedding, so I’ll have to pretend I haven't seen you,” he snickered.

“Oi!”

“See you at the ceremony,” Tony said, again, and kissed his temple again, then slipped from the room.

“Heh, he's lucky he's got that ass,” Johnny smirked as he attached his cuff links. 

  
  


\---

  
  


As weddings go, it hadn't actually been all that traditional. 

Sure, they had groomsmen and women on both sides, and they had an officiant overseeing the actual vows – Bruce somehow got conscripted into that, again – and they had an adorable ring bearer and flower girl as Maggie and Joseph headed up the aisle, obediently, he holding a pillow and she flicking flower petals at everyone.

But Johnny arrived at the altar, not with someone walking him down the aisle, but he flew there, on flames, and landed neatly. Flaming off revealed that the suit he was wearing was fireproof, and he grinned as he watched the skies.

Sure enough, Iron Man had streaked through the sky a moment later, and landed firmly beside him, the armour folding up and pulling off of him until Tony Stark stood beside him in a matching tux. 

That, long run, wasn't the  _typical_ beginning of a wedding.

It progressed pretty normally from there, with vows and rings and Bruce giving a bit of a speech, and thank  _god_ , no one attacked them. No HYDRA showed up, Modok didn't shoot at anyone, hell, even Dr. Doom stayed away from them. Things were good. The whole wedding  _happened_ , and nothing interrupted, it was  _good_ . 

Well, things went well until they actually tried to have the reception dinner, and they were about halfway through the first dance – which they were mostly doing because Pepper had said that if she had to plan their wedding, they were going to follow a basic cookie cutter wedding template, and weddings had a first dance – and a glass hit the floor, shattering, wine spilling across the floor. 

There was a shout of surprise, then Natasha called, “We need a doctor!”

Someone needed to stop inviting Wade Wilson to these functions, because Deadpool howled, over the crowd, “She's gonna  _blow_ !”

“Tony!” Pepper called, dashing towards the men that had stopped dancing somewhere around the time that Wade had yelled, and said, eyes wide, “Mary Jane's water just broke.”

“Oh _shit_ ,” Johnny yelped.

  
  


\---

  
  


The doctors had said, at one point, that they were sure that Mary Jane would need to have a c-section, because delivery with twins was often hard, but in the end, as she was just over thirty five weeks when she did deliver and everything was, according to the doctors, perfectly aligned, she delivered naturally. Well, with as many drugs as she could get, because she said 'Dammit, if I’m delivering twins, I want the  _good shit_ !' and as Tony said, what MJ wanted, MJ got.

But the doctors were  _worried_ , and didn't let Tony and Johnny in the room during the delivery itself. After all, they, it was early, the babies might not be ready to be out, there was a chance that there could be complications. Hadn't the first pregnancy ended abruptly in complications?

“How long are deliveries _supposed_ to take?” Johnny demanded, finally. He was sitting in one of the hospital chairs, one of his feet tapping on the floor, sipping at his coffee. 

“No idea,” Tony said, hands shoved in his pockets as he paced back and forth, back and forth. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and while he hated being in the waiting room instead of being in the room _with_ Mary Jane, watching for the birth of their children, at least they had a private waiting room, and there were no reporters waiting for them, trying to snap pictures of the Stark-Storm couple, who had been trying to get married and were now waiting in a hospital room for their babies. 

Neither of them really needed the attention, right now.

“C'mere.” Johnny said, abruptly.

Tony blinked at him for a moment, then crossed the room to slump in the seat beside him, and leaned heavily on his husband's shoulder. “...I'm just worried about the kids.”

“Yeah, I can't blame you,” he murmured, slipping his arm around Tony's waist, holding him close against his side. “Here, it's shitty coffee, but...”

He took it, relieved, and sipped at the crap coffee. “Thanks.”

The two of them sat alone and quiet for a very long time, neither of them really having the words to try and explain their thoughts, their hopes, their fears. They just stayed curled close together, Tony's head on Johnny's shoulder as he curled his new husband close to him, and they stayed still and quiet.

It was almost frighteningly domestic.

Finally, Johnny actually fell asleep, his head resting on the top of Tony's as he snoozed, quietly. He was still sitting up in the chair, curled into his husband, and Tony was idly stroking Johnny's palm as he did, content to have his younger husband curled closed to his side. The sun had gone down outside, he could see through the window on the wall, and the city was all lit up and cheerful when finally the door opened, and a doctor stepped into the room, smiling. “Mr. Stark? Mr. Storm?”

Johnny shifted, blinking. “Hm?”

Tony straightened up. “What is it?”

“Do you want to come see your children?”

Both of the men were up so fast that it was like magic, and they obligingly shoved on the paper gowns and caps as they hurried into the little room, and a few minutes later, they were let into a little nursery, a room that was almost stifflingly hot. “The room has to be warm because the babies are a little underweight,” the doctor was saying. “So the room is warmer than normal. But they don't need to be in incubators, either. Here they are...”

There were two little plastic bassinets, side by side, with two little bundles, one pink, one blue. 

“A boy and a girl?” Johnny looked up. “I thought they said two boys...?”

“Sometimes it's hard to tell with ultrasounds,” the doctor said, beaming at them. 

Tony, who had been all action and movement and motion a moment before, was suddenly quiet and hesitating, and tentatively reached out to run his fingers over the head of the little blue bundled baby. The little baby shifted and moved, slightly, yawning, as he stroked his fingertips over the soft shock of black hair. “Holy shit, he's tiny.”

“You're swearing in front of the babies,” Johnny laughed, softly, and gently parted the pink blankets around his daughter, touching her little hand. “ _Tony_!” He gasped, as her tiny fingers curled tightly around his finger.

He laughed, breathlessly, looking up at Johnny, eyes bright. “God, they're beautiful.”

Johnny started laughing, smile so wide he felt like his cheeks hurt, almost crying, and said, breathlessly, “We're  _dads_ !”

Tony clapped his hand over his mouth, eyes bright as his shoulders shook. “We are.”

“Fuck, this is the best day ever,” Johnny laughed, quietly picking up the little girl in the bassinet, delicately, wanting to make sure he steadied her head. “We got married, and we have babies. Fuck. We have _babies_.”

“Yeah, we do.” Tony very carefully picked up their son, licking his lips. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, gently trailing his fingertips over her delicate soft head and feathery light blonde hair, sucking in a sharp breath when she opened her eyes, blue eyes looking up at him, unfocused, not quite seeing him, and he breathed, “Tony... _Tony_...”

“I see.” He whispered.

Johnny swallowed, and said, “We have to name them.”

“Yeah, right...”

“Dibs on naming the boy,” he lifted his head, looking across at Tony.

Tony blinked. “...what?”

“Dibs on naming the boy,” he said again, grinning at him. 

“...fine, I get dibs on naming the girl, then.” Tony said, loftily.

“Deal.” Johnny grinned, and offered his daughter his finger again, eyes bright when she latched onto his hand again.

  
  


\---

  
  


EPILOGUE

  
  


“Flame off!” 

Tony twisted to face the door of the lab, and arched a brow as Johnny stepped into the lab, grinning, a little dark haired boy sitting on his shoulders. “Hey, firefly.”

“Hey,” he grinned, and headed over to the bench, leaning over to kiss Tony, firmly. 

On his shoulders, the little dark hair boy laughed, clapping his hands, and said, “Daddy, daddy!”

“Heya, big guy,” he grinned, and reached up to tug Tony Jr. off of Johnny's shoulders, bouncing him on his hip as he did, grinning at his son. “Was your dad flying you around?”

“Yep.” He beamed, then reached out his arms. “Hn!”

Mary stood up from where she had been sitting on the table, thumping down the screwdriver she'd been playing with, and grinned at her twin brother, eagerly. “Joo-your!”

“Mayee.” Tony Jr. wriggled, and kicked his legs, brightly. “Daddy... football?”

Tony snorted, and looked over at Johnny. “Were you giving him ideas?”

“No, that was Maggie.” He grinned, and scooped up Mary when she all but threw herself at him, laughing as he swung her up onto his shoulders like her brother had been a moment before, bouncing her, slightly. “And Joseph.”

“Well, they are like that... we're getting close to having a full team, soon,” Tony grinned, laughing when his son calmly undid his buttons, and pressed his fingers against the arc reactor. His children adored the blue light, for some reason. “So what's the plan now, then, guys? Football?”

“Football!” Mary called, proudly.

Tony grinned. “You in, firefly?”

“I'm in,” he agreed, and swung Tony Jr. down. “Suit up, guys, it's time to play some football.”

Their children shouted in glee, and ran off to get their suits. 

“...are we terrible parents?” Tony crossed his arms, watching their twins run across the room as fast as their little legs would take them, stepping into the “Iron Toddler” suits that Tony had custom built for them, with JARVIS links and a multitude of bright colours and sounds to encourage brain development, leaning on his husband's shoulder.

“Naw.” Johnny grinned. “We're fucking _awesome_.”

  
  


  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bedtime Stories and Robots](https://archiveofourown.org/works/378137) by [Epiphanyx7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanyx7/pseuds/Epiphanyx7)




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